KOLKATA: West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking his intervention to release funds under the National Health Mission (NHM), which have been withheld due to “non-compliance of colour branding guidelines for health and wellness centres, despite other conditions being fulfilled”.

She said withholding of funds would affect the poor. “It is most unfortunate that very recently, I am informed that the Union Ministry of Health & Family Welfare has withheld fund release under National Health Mission to West Bengal due to non-compliance of certain colour branding guidelines for health and wellness centres, despite other conditionalities being fulfilled. Withholding the fund release would adversely deprive the poor of their benefit,” Mamata stated in the letter.

The letter was sent on November 29, the day when Union home minister Amit Shah claimed in Kolkata that the Modi-led central government had been open-handed in allotting funds to Bengal. “There are around 11,000 functional health and wellness centres benefiting more than three lakh people every day. These buildings have been constructed since 2011 in accordance with colour branding of the state,” Banerjee informed.

She said Bengal has been the “frontrunner in the implementation of different public health programmes. As a part of the National Health Mission scheme, our state has been performing exceedingly”.

“Changes in the colour brand by way of repainting so many buildings would involve significant infructuous expenditure,” she said.

“I would request you to kindly intervene for immediate release of NHM funds for Bengal and for removal of specific colour branding conditionalities for the health and wellness centres…so that the poor people do not suffer from lack of quality health services,” the letter read.

The letter comes at a time when the central and the state government are at loggerheads over release of central funds for MGNREGA, PM Awas Yojana and other schemes.