Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley jus­ti­fied cut­backs in fund­ing for Di­vali Na­gar cel­e­bra­tions at the event's clos­ing cer­e­mo­ny in Ch­agua­nas last night.

How­ev­er, the PM point­ed out that the Di­vali Na­gar is a bea­con of hope and a bea­con of the ex­pres­sion of the best in T&T.

In de­liv­er­ing the fea­ture ad­dress, Row­ley said cuts were made in all ar­eas of na­tion­al spend­ing, in­clud­ing op­er­a­tions at the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty.

"Di­vali en­cour­ages pu­ri­ty, not just in the clean­ing of our homes, but in the pu­rifi­ca­tion of our hearts and our minds," ac­cord­ing to Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

In a mes­sage to Hin­dus who will cel­e­brate the Fes­ti­val of Lights to­mor­row, the Prime Min­is­ter, in a state­ment said: "Such pu­ri­ty ex­tends to the way in which we in­ter­act with our nat­ur­al and phys­i­cal en­vi­ron­ment, the strate­gies we em­ploy to con­serve our most vi­tal re­sources and the life changes we em­brace to­wards achiev­ing per­son­al goals."