Agartala: Tripura government has demanded Rs. 93,196 crore to meet the non-plan expenditure and carry forward the development activities during the tenure of 14th Finance Commission.
While Rs. 48291 crore has been sought for meeting the non-plan expenditure, Rs. 15,923 crore was demanded for other grants to ADC and other government and semi-government organizations.
An amount of Rs. 28,082 crore has been demanded to carry forward the development activities during the period of 14th FC.
Chief Minister Manik Sarkar while speaking to media on Thursday said, “We had a meeting with the visiting full-fledged team of XIV Finance Commission at Civil Secretariat where an elaborate projection was offered to it”.
Sarkar said the government urged the visiting FC team to assume 2014-15 FY as base year while determining the state’s non-plan expenditure.
“We told Chairman Dr. YV Reddy and members of the FC on how the employees and pensioners of the state government have been suffering due to unrealistic assessment by the 13th FC. On behalf of the government, we appealed the FC team not to rerun the methodology of the 13th FC”, he said.
Sarkar said the government also took up the issue of normative formula for which Tripura suffered a lot in meeting non-plan expenditure.
“Tripura can’t be matched with big states like Maharashtra and Tamilnadu while assessing the non-plan expenditure. Its truth uneven development still persists in the country even 66 years of independence”, he told the FC team.
In course of the meeting with the FC, Chief Minister also mentioned the formation of the 7th Pay Commission for revision of salaries of Central government employee.
“We told the Chairman of the FC that the state government could not implement the 6th Pay Commission’s recommendations as the XIII FC did not consider the state government’s appeal. This time, we want the XIV FC to ‘arrange’ funds so that state government employees could get benefit after implementation of the 7th Pay Commission’s recommendation”, he said.
On the share of Central tax, the government was of the view that it should be enhanced from 33 percent to 50 percent so that the state could meet the day-to-day expenditure.
“We want equitable distribution of central tax among states without weakening the federal structure”, he told the FC team.
Sarkar further said the state government wants the XIV FC to recommend a one time waive of loan amounting to Rs. 383 crore (Not Bank).
“We requested the FC team to consider the state’s appeal for waive of loan amounting to Rs. 383 crore”, he said in the meeting.