CM harps on pending coal royalty to eastern states at Eastern Zonal Council meet

Bhubaneswar: Apart from raising the issue that "Bengal is highly deprived" by the Centre in terms of releasing funds for the state, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee also harped upon the issue of the pending coal royalty to eastern region states including Jharkhand, Odisha and Bengal.

The issues related to inordinate delay in clearing the due amounts to the states by the Centre has come up in the Eastern Zonal Council (EZC) meeting at Bhubaneswar on Friday.

While addressing the media after the meeting, Banerjee said: "Jharkhand, Odisha and Bengal have said together that the pending coal royalty should be released as early as possible. They take away all coal from our state and give us nothing."

She further said: "We feel that the royalty should be finalised on the basis of wash coal. They said that they will be discussing on taking policy decision in this matter." Giving details on the inordinate delay in releasing funds by the Centre, Banerjee said: "The release of GST compensation to the state by the Centre has become quite irregular and often gets delayed for months. Earlier, GST compensation used to get released within two months, but it takes six months now. It leads to financial crunch in the state and it is not good. It leads to severe problems as money comes to the state's treasury on the 20th day of a month, while we need to give salary on the 1st day of every month."

Stating that the Centre is yet to release the funds to the state that was spent for disaster management after cyclone Fani and Bulbul, she further said: "Bengal has not received Rs 50,000 crore till January 2020 from the Centre. The state government is also being denied of a large part of devolution funds from the Centre. Bengal is highly deprived." Banerjee had also written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in this regard a few days ago.

Making it quite clear that there was no separate one-to-one meeting, the Chief Minister further said there were discussions on various pending issues including discussion on land issues for railway and civil aviation projects.

Sources said that Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has stated in the meeting that eastern states contribute to mineral and energy security of the country and the fruits of these sectors should come to the people of this region.

There was also discussion in the meeting on the need of improvement in teledensity and rural banking.