Calcutta, July 14: What the government has spent on security forces in Lalgarh in a month is about the same amount it has managed to spend on development of the entire region in a year.

Of the Rs 50 crore allocated to it last year, the ministry set up for the development of the impoverished western region has spent only Rs 3.13 crore, says an Assembly standing committee report.

The Paschimanchal Unnayan Parshad, constituted in 2000, covers 74 blocks in many of which lack of development and abject poverty have helped Maoist guerrillas form a parallel administration.

The blocks are spread ac-ross Bankura, Purulia, Birbhum, Burdwan and West Midnapore, where the rebels are now bleeding the state in terms of money and manpower.

Over the past three years, the allocation for the department has more than doubled but the money being spent has come down from around 77 per cent to 6 per cent (see box).

When the Congress MLA from Purulia, Nepal Mahato, told the minister in the Assembly “you are preoccupied with politics, how can you oversee development”, Sushanta Ghosh blamed it on lack of infra- structure. “I admit we haven’t been able to use the funds be- cause of lack of infrastructure,” Ghosh said.

He also had no qualms in admitting that his department’s failure had contributed to Lalgarh becoming a Maoist “liberated zone”.

It is to break this guerrilla stranglehold on Lalgarh that the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government is spending Rs 10 lakh a day on security forces.

Officials blamed western zone development minister Ghosh for the mess. “We have no office in the districts where we are supposed to work. We have to depend on the district magistrates and panchayats, who are saddled with their own projects,” said an official.

The projects for which the ministry had been allocated funds include providing drinking water and irrigation, development of basic primary education, construction of rural roads and anganwadi centres, preservation of forests and ensuring 100 days’ work under the national rural employment guarantee scheme.

An office building was rented in Bankura late last year, but it is yet to start functioning as the staff have not been recruited. “We require at least six civil engineers, two executive engineers and a dozen Group D staff to run the office effectively,” an official said.

But why did it take nine years to construct the Parshad office or get a rented house?

An official said the delay was because of the minister’s objection to its location. “He wanted it in his constituency (Garbeta, West Midnapore). But we wanted it in Bankura, the heart of our zone.”

The minister was also blamed for not pressuring district officials to get projects executed. “His preoccupation with political activities in his constituency have stood in the way,” the official said.

Ghosh is known to be a CPM strongman in Garbeta.

The officials’ allegations about the minister were echoed by the Opposition in the Assembly when Ghosh began his reply to the debate on his department’s Rs 66.58-crore budget for 2009-10.

Outside the Assembly, Left Front partner Forward Bloc adopted a resolution today highlighting the failures of the western zone development ministry. It said central welfare projects were not implemented and the public distribution system failed as hoarders took control of it.

“The pertinent question is why a Left citadel has turned into a Maoist ‘liberated zone’?” the resolution asked.