Calcutta, June 11: Central funds for the national rural employment guarantee scheme will first come to the state government instead of going straight to the district magistrates, the Centre has said, at a time ally Mamata Banerjee has demanded the opposite.

The Trinamul Congress chief had recently said that central relief for cyclone victims should go straight to the panchayats and not the state government as it would “digest the funds”.

Bengal’s plea before the Centre to route the rural job scheme money through the state government had been pending for nearly four years. The nod, given by the previous UPA regime, was conveyed to the districts last month.

State rural development and panchayat secretary M.N. Roy said: “We had been demanding the state government’s supervisory control over rural schemes for the past few years and, for that, the money has to be given to the administration directly. The Centre responded to our demand by agreeing to send the NREGS funds to the government instead of sending it to the districts.”

The job scheme aims at providing 100 days’ work to a member of every rural household.

After cyclone Aila struck, Mamata, railway minister in the new UPA cabinet, demanded that central relief be sent to panchayats and not the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government, reminding the Congress of the “PM-to-DM (district magistrate)” phrase coined by Rajiv Gandhi.

Panchayat minister Surjya Kanta Mishra, whose department received the letter, said: “We were facing problems with the funds going directly to the districts. Money was getting stuck in underperforming districts, while more money could not be allotted to districts where demand for work was high. So there used to be a demand-supply mismatch. Moreover, the Centre hadn’t allowed diversion of funds from one district to another.”

Nemai Haldar, the nodal officer looking after the scheme in East Midnapore, said: “We have got instructions that from this financial year, funds will be sent through the state government.”

Bengal’s rural job scheme record is dismal. The districts of East and West Midnapore, Nadia, Cooch Behar, North and South Dinajpur, South 24-Parganas, Malda and Murshidabad and the Siliguri mahakuma parishad have managed to provide less than 25 days’ work against the target of 100 days. Birbhum, Purulia, Jalpaiguri, Burdwan and Hooghly have provided work between 25 and 30 days.