THE Twelfth Finance Commission has urged the Tripura Government to maintain a balance between eradication of poverty and enriching the revenue heads. While it rapped the State Government on the high poverty rate, it commended the state’s growth of economy at   the rate of 10.8 percent.

The team of the Finance Commission under the Chairmanship of Dr C Rangarajan after a series of meeting with the State Government also observed that the State Government has      not succeeded in keeping the  growth rate of revenue expenditure in line with the revenue receipts during 1997-03.

“While the revenue expenditure grew annually at 13.9 percent as against the annual growth of 10.7 per cent in revenue receipts. The expenditure on salary, pension     and interest has remained as high as 81.2 per cent of the total revenue receipts in 2002-03”, the commission observed.

While it commended the State’s revenue growth at 20.7 percent during 1998-03, it pointed out the low tax-GSDP ratio at 2.6 percent in 2002-03 compared to 3.9 percent in case of the other special Category State and suggested expenditure compression particularly its non- plan head. Expressing concern over the decline of revenue deficit in 2003-04, despite 90 percent central assistance as grants, the Commission suggested reducing revenue and fiscal deficits and reducing the overall debt burden. However, the Commission assured the state that it will take into consideration, state’s demand to evolve a general scheme of fiscal transfer with due weightage to the problems faced by Tripura like geographical bottleneck.

Finance minister Badal Choudhury said that the State sought special assistance from the Commission to the tune of Rs 14,367.44 crore to wipe out the non plan revenue deficit, funds for local bodies and for upgradation programme in the next five years. Besides, the state also sought special grant of Rs 1000 crore to meet the shortfall in the present financial year arising out of the non-sanction of the gap grant amount. “We have also requested the commission to maintain state’s share of central funds at 1.4 percent as in case of the Eighth Finance Commission. The state’s share of central resources for Tripura has been steadily declining from 1.4 recommended by Eighth Finance Commission to 1 percent in Eleventh commission”, he said. “ The Commission has also been asked to ensure ten percent of the total share of taxes exclusively for the north east”, he added.

On the discussions with the commission regarding the present financial constraints, the minister said, while the state sought Rs 1166 crore as interest from the Eleventh Commission, it paid only Rs 825 crore leaving the state to pay Rs 266 crore as interests to the financial institutions.

“At the same time, in the pension head, we paid in excess of Rs 404 crore and Rs 315 crore as share of central taxes is still to be cleared leading to a debt burden. All this contributes to 88 percent of the non plan acount leaving with no scope for development”, Choudhury said adding that Rs 1000 crore has been sought as special assistance in this regard.

Earlier, Representatives of the political parties and autonomous bodies urged the twelfth Finance Commission to ensure fund availability for the state’s unending resource crunch. Among the parties that met the Finance Commission includes the ruling Left front, Congress, Trinamool Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party.

| Tripura | North East Enquirer (Headlines) | Nena Home Page |