Driving Naari Programme launched in Chandigarh
Chandigarh, The state stands to lose sector and state-specific grants given by the Centre.
State Finance Minister Parminder Singh Dhindsa said the state got Rs 700 crore from the Centre as part of state and sector-specific grants during the current fiscal year. In the light of the recommendations of the 14th Finance Commission, the Centre would, however, not give any of these grants to the state in the next fiscal.
During the current fiscal, the state got Rs 5,000 crore as its share from the central divisive pool of taxes. “During the next fiscal, we expect to get Rs 8,000 crore from this pool,” he added.
However, as the state government would have to now fund most of the plan schemes from its own kitty, this increase would be neutralised, he said. The state would be a big loser on the plan schemes grant front, he added. “During the current fiscal, we got Rs 3,000 crore for plan schemes, besides other grants-in-aid from the Centre, but there would be an estimated cut of Rs 2,200 crore from this allocation of Rs 3,000 crore in the next fiscal,” he added.
On the exclusion of the state from the grant-in aid announced for the revenue-deficit states, he said, “We have been pleading our case with centre for long, but we have got no relief in this regard. The commission wrongly calculated our revenue expenditure and deducted subsidy being given to the power sector from it.”
A total grant-in-aid of Rs 1,94,821 crore has been approved by the commission for revenue-deficit states. During the next five years, West Bengal would get about Rs 11,760 crore, Kerala Rs 9,519 crore, Andhra Pradesh Rs 22,113 crore, Jammu and Kashmir Rs 5,96,66 crore, Himachal Pradesh Rs 40,625 crore and Manipur Rs 10,227 crore. However, not a single penny has been sanctioned for Punjab in this regard, Dhindsa said. The state’s revenue deficit was likely to cross Rs 6,000-crore mark at the end of this fiscal.
On what basis, the commission had calculated that the state’s surplus revenue would be Rs 10,117 crore by fiscal year 2019-20, it was difficult to decode, he said.
Rejecting recommendations of the Shanta Kumar committee on restructuring the Food Corporation of India (FCI), he said the consequence of implementation of the report would be harmful for the foodgrain-surplus states like Punjab. “There will be chaos in states like Punjab and Haryana, if it is implemented,” he said.
