Kolkata, Apr 22 (DHNS): West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday warned the Centre against ignoring her repeated requests for helping the state tide over its poor financial conditions.
She also issued a 15-day ultimatum to the Centre to decide her demand for sanctioning a compensatory grant or a three-year moratorium on the huge interest burden of the cash-strapped state.
The Trinamool Congress leader also charged the Centre with adopting an “indifferent attitude” to her pleas for West Bengal. She said the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government at the Centre seemed to be determined to make West Bengal “a debt-ridden state.”
She reiterated that the Centre’s stand would become a “big issue” with far-reaching consequences. She said: “We have not enough income to pay interest for the debt burden ‘bequeathed’ by the erstwhile (Left Front) government. Now, our annual income is Rs 21,000 crore and we have to shell out Rs 22,000 crore to pay interest and part of the loan. We don’t want any mercy, but we have been urging the Centre to give us an interest holiday for at least three years. We have been waiting for one year. I have met the prime minister and the finance minister several times but they have done nothing in this regard so far.”
If the Centre doesn’t give a three-year moratorium on interest or a compensatory grant, then the consequences will not be good.
“I am still appealing to the Centre, but if it continues to remain indifferent, then it will be a big issue. I will still wait for another 15 days,” Mamata told reporters after a convention of the West Bengal Civil Service Officers’ Association.
The chronic revenue deficit state carries outstanding loans of around Rs 2.30 lakh crore, apart from paying Rs 31,185 crore as salaries and Rs 9,582 crore as pension. It has to pay Rs 22,000 crore to service the debt of which Rs 16,097 crore is interest and rest part of the principal amount.
According to the state budget, the revenue expenditure for this fiscal is Rs 83,719.39 crore against the budgeted receipt of Rs 76,743.38 crore, which means that the state will have to spend Rs 109.09 to earn Rs 100. The chief minister said: “Everyday the finance minister has to think... how to give salaries and run the expenses of the state. We are paying the cost for which we are not at all responsible. If someone thinks that he will take away our food and kill us, then the future will not be good.”
She also came down heavily on the Centre for deducting the state’s share of Central Sales Tax (CST) compensation.
“The Centre has also deducted Rs 1,500 crore from our share of CST compensation. On the one hand, it is cutting Rs 22,000 crore as interest and, on the other, it is deducting Rs 1,500 crore from CST compensation. It means the Centre is making the state government debt-ridden to ensure that it cannot function,” she said.
Mamata has been insisting that her new government had inherited this dire situation from the previous ministry. The Centre has allowed the state to slip into such a poor financial mess. Hence, the UPA government should find a way to waive these loans or settle the debt.“The prime minister himself had said before 2011 Assembly election that they would give every support to the new government. Now, it’s time for him to oblige,” a Trinamool Congress leader on condition of anonymity said.