Bhattacharjee wrote this letter on Monday in response to the Prime Minister’s letter of January 13 to all chief ministers, which enlisted the measures taken by the Centre to tackle recession.

In his letter, while the chief minister has mentioned that the empowered committee of state finance ministers has demanded that the Centre disburse Rs 20,000 crore among the states to enable them to fight recession, he has requested the Centre to sanction Rs 1,000 crore as assistance to Bengal, which the state will use in the housing sector.

While Bhattacharjee has thanked the Prime Minister for making borrowing by the states from the Reserve Bank flexible, he also alleged that the public sector banks were not forthcoming in disbursing loans as desired by the Centre.

On Monday External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, who has got the additional charge of finance, in a meeting with the top brass of several commercial banks, requested them to increase lending, particularly in rural areas.

In Kolkata, too, on January 29 state Finance Minister Asim Dasgupta had a meeting with regional bosses of the commercial banks and he also requested them to increase lending.

Meanwhile, recession has started hitting investments in the state too. Mumbai-based Spice Energy Limited, which is setting up a refinery in Haldia, has requested the government for an interest-free loan of Rs 150 crore. It has also asked the government for exemption of vat and power at concessional rate.

The company has already been allotted 400 acres of land at Haldia where it will build the refinery in the first phase.