All parties sans BJP echo Mamata's demand to restructure debt before Finance Commission

Kolkata: Echoing Mamata Banerjee, all political parties

except BJP demanded debt restructuring and enhancement of devolution of Central taxes to the states, before the Fifteenth Finance Commission.

The Fifteenth Finance Commission, headed by chairman N K Singh, held a meeting at Nabanna Sabhaghar on Monday. Representatives of all the political parties, head of the civic bodies in the state and Zilla Parishads were present in the meeting.

Officials of the state Finance department were also present in the meeting. Amit Mitra, the state Finance minister, felicitated the chairman.

From Trinamool Congress, senior leaders Partha Chatterjee and Firhad Hakim attended the meeting. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will have a one-to-one meeting with the chairman and she will be addressing the Press afterwards.

It may be mentioned that in a memorandum to the Finance Commission, the state government has already stated the need of debt restructuring spread over a longer period, as the state has been having high outstanding debt over the past 18 fiscals consistently.

It was stated that "the fiscal picture in Bengal is characterised by a high Debt to Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) ratio and a low own tax revenue-GSDP ratio. Bengal has consistently had high outstanding debt over the period of 2000-01 to 2017-18 fiscals."

On Monday, the former state Finance minister of CPI(M), Asim Dasgupta, along with the party's MLA and Mayor of Siliguri Municipal Corporation Ashok Bhattacharya, attended the meeting with the Finance Commission.

After the meeting, Dasgupta stated: "We have urged for further enhancement of devolution of Central taxes to the states from 42 percent to 50 percent, particularly because it will take some time for GST to settle down in a user-friendly manner and also upholding the autonomy of the states."

He further stated: "Despite an enhancement of the share of Central taxes to 42 percent following recommendations of the Fourteenth Finance Commission, the fact remains that even in the year 2016-17, the burden of annual development expenditure that had to be borne by the states together (Rs 18.9 lakh crore) was more than twice of what was borne by the Centre (Rs 8.9 lakh crore)…"

This comes at a time when the major development works in sectors including irrigation, roads, power, education, health, etc. need to be carried out by the states.

Nepal Mahato of Congress had also raised the same issues, besides stressing upon the package needed for Jangalmahal.

RSP leader Subhas Naskar has stated that "the Fifteenth Finance Commission has to look after the horizontal imbalance among the states through allocating revenues to them."

The state government will be giving the formal presentation before the Finance Commission on Tuesday, in which the issues related to the high debt to GSDP ratio and low own tax revenue to GSDP ratio, despite the state government's better performance in social sector, would be raised.

In a programme organised by the Indian Chamber of Commerce, Singh said: "One of the terms of reference for the commission says that we shall use the 2011 census if we choose to use population. There is a particular component in the terms of reference, which says we may consider incentivising those states which have achieved good and rapid progress on replacement rates on demographic management."

Speaking about the opposition of some states to shifting of population base from 1971 to 2011 in terms of reference, Singh maintained: "The commission has nothing to do with the terms of reference given to it."