SHILLONG, March 9: Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma said the state government has released a fourth of the 30% arrears of government employees.
The release of the remaining 22.5% arrears will be considered during the current fiscal subject to availability of fund, he told the Assembly on Tuesday.
“The arrears released on February 11 is 7.5% of the overall arrears,” Sangma said while replying to a question by Opposition Chief Whip, PT Sawkmie on the third day of the ongoing Budget session of the 60-member Assembly.
Stating that there has been a huge shortfall in the monthly entitlements due to the state from the central government during the current fiscal, the Chief Minister attributed it to the reduction in the collection owing to the COVID-19 pandemic.
He said that the state government is making all efforts to prudently manage the finances despite the challenging times.
“Accordingly, the release of the 22.5% remaining arrears during 2020-2021 will be considered subject to availability of funds,” he added.
Raising a supplementary question, Sawkmie asked whether the release of 7.5% of the overall arrears has been accepted or not by the employees. The Chief Minister replied that the state government endeavoured to clear the amount that was to be paid in three installments.
“The Chief Secretary has met the employees, who are aware of the conditions and situations we face. It is in the endeavour of the government to do our best to ensure that the remaining part of the amount is cleared at the earliest,” he said.
On the shortfall in finances, the Chief Minister said the central devolution of taxes was budgeted at Rs 6,490 crore, but the state government received Rs 4,698 crore — a shortfall of Rs 1,792 crore.
“In the state’s own taxes, there was a budget estimate of Rs 2,377 crore but the actual was Rs 1,859 crore. So, there was a shortfall of Rs 518 crore,” he added.
GST borrowings
Meghalaya has so far received Rs 194 crore in additional borrowing of 0.50% of the GSDP allowed to states while the fund raised through the special window passed on to Meghalaya till March 8 is Rs 111.80 crore.
The Ministry of Finance, Department of Expenditure had released the 19th weekly instalment of Rs 2,104 crore to the states to meet the GST shortfall. The Centre had set up a special borrowing window in October, 2020, to meet the estimated shortfall of Rs. 1.10 lakh crore in revenue arising on account of the implementation of GST.
The borrowings are being done through this window by the Centre on behalf of the states and UTs. There have been 19 rounds of borrowings from October 23, 2020.
In addition to providing funds through the special borrowing window, the Centre has granted additional borrowing permission equivalent to 0.50% of Gross States Domestic Product (GSDP) to the states, choosing Option-I to meet GST compensation shortfall to help them in mobilising additional financial resources.
All the states have given their preference for Option-I. Permission for borrowing the entire additional amount of Rs 1,06,830 crore (0.50% of GSDP) has been granted to 28 states under this provision.