Guwahati, Dec. 17: Assam agriculture minister Rakibul Hussain, while countering BJP leader Himanta Biswa Sarma's charge that chief minister Tarun Gogoi was misleading the people about funds sharing between the Centre and the state, today said the Centre had slashed funds in major agriculture and rural development schemes in the 2015-16 fiscal after reinstating the 90:10 funding pattern.

Hussain said in Indira Awas Yojana (IAY), the 90:10 funding pattern would deprive 60,000 below poverty line families in the state in the current financial year.

"After the Centre informed us on September 23 this year that funding in IAY would be 50:50, we had set a target of providing houses to 183,171 BPL people. But after the funding was restored to 90:10, it (the Centre) asked us to reduce the target to 123,193 beneficiaries. This would deprive 60,000 beneficiaries from having a house under the scheme," he said.

Hussain said the Centre had discontinued financial support to the state under the Backward Region Grants Funds, which was launched by the UPA government in 2006. This fund aimed to bridge vital gaps in the development of backward districts. Thirteen districts in the state were covered under the scheme. "We had appointed an accountant in each of the 2,202 panchayats under the scheme but the Centre discontinued it. The BJP is promising jobs to our young people but why can't they take up the issue with the Centre and save jobs of these people?" he said.

Sarma, who switched to the BJP from the Congress in August, yesterday accused chief minister Tarun Gogoi of "misleading" the people of Assam by refraining from making public a Niti Aayog report in October which reveals a 90:10 Centre-state fund sharing pattern for all core schemes in the eight northeastern states.

Hussain said Sarma was not giving the correct picture about the Centre's funding in order to reap political gains ahead of next year's Assembly polls.

"The Centre has stopped the Annapurna scheme under which 26,000 BPL beneficiaries were provided 10kg free rice every month in the state and has not yet released some instalments for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme despite submission of utilisation certificates. In the current year, the Centre has released only Rs 502 crore against our labour budget of Rs 1,368.36 crore," he added.

The minister said allocations under agriculture schemes such as the National Mission on Oil Seeds and Oil Palm, Rashtriya Krishi Vikash Yojana and the National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture have also been slashed by the Centre during the current fiscal.