Mamata tells PM to clear dues to help state battle Covid outbreak
Kolkata: Urging Prime Minister Narendra Modi to clear all financial dues of the state to the tune of around Rs 53,000 crore to help it fight the COVID-19 situation, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee demanded the withdrawal of all conditions on borrowing under the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) Act.
Despite announcing an increase in the FRBM limit from 3 to 5 percent of the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP), the Centre had imposed conditions including "One Nation, One Ration", hike in urban local body revenues and power distribution reforms on the borrowing of 1.5 percent resulting in an actual increase of only 0.5 percent. "Withdrawal of the conditions will ease the financial pressure on the state at this critical time. Is there any condition for a person to get infected to COVID-19," Banerjee said while addressing the virtual inauguration of three ICMR laboratories in Kolkata, Mumbai and Uttar Pradesh respectively in which the Prime Minister, Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath were also present besides Union Health minister Harsh Vardhan.
Stating that the financial burden is going up when the state has already spent Rs 2,500 crore to fight Covid and Rs 6,250 crore for reconstruction after Super Cyclone Amphan when the economy has completely nosedived, Banerjee said: "It is my request to the Prime Minister to release the dues of Rs 53,000 crore for which we are requesting for the past six months. It will help us even if it is released in phases." The dues include Rs 4,135 crore GST compensation from April to May that is due to the state in June.
At the same time, she also urged Modi to release a special fund to fight the pandemic as the state so far has received only Rs 125 crore under the National Health Mission to combat the disease. She also informed the Prime Minister that the state has been asked to utilise the State Disaster Relief Fund (SDRF) to fight the pandemic, "but what will the state do at the time of any natural disaster like flood and cyclone if SDRF fund gets utilised now for Covid outbreak?"
Banerjee also told the Prime Minister that he can inform the world that there is a state called West Bengal in his country where treatment is provided to people absolutely free-of-cost.
In connection with the Amphan aftermath amidst the pandemic, Banerjee informed the Prime Minister that the state has also mentioned about the Centre's support of only Rs 1,000 crore when it has already submitted a damage report of Rs 35,000 crore.
In the wake of COVID-19, Banerjee urged the Prime Minister to take steps so that the UGC's guidelines of mandatory holding of terminal semester examinations in educational institutions by September 2020 gets withdrawn.
Highlighting steps taken by the Bengal government in fighting the virus outbreak, Banerjee informed about the unique concept of setting up 106 'safe homes' for asymptomatic and mild symptomatic patients for whom home isolation is not possible. Besides appreciating ASHA workers for visiting around 30 crore households for testing, Banerjee informed Modi about the Covid warrior clubs in the state.
The Chief Minister appreciated the move of setting up an ICMR laboratory in Bengal that will be run by NICED and also urged for Centre's assistance in setting up such laboratories in state-run hospitals to further increase the number of tests that is at present at least 16,000 while Bengal has set a target of increasing it to 25,000 by August 15. She stated that initially there was only one laboratory in the state for COVID-19 tests and now it has gone up to 56, including 26 smaller ones where only 16 to 32 tests can be done per day.
