Tamil Nadu asks Centre for special Rs 9,000 crore grant to combat Covid-19

Since both central and state tax revenues will fall short of the Budget Estimates, grant will help, says Palaniswami

The Tamil Nadu Government has asked the Centre to allocate Rs 9,000 crore to combat Covid-19, as both central and state tax revenues will fall short of the Budget Estimates. To make up for the shortfall, the State has asked the Centre for a special grant to deal with the pandemic and its after-effects on the State’s economy, said Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K Palaniswami during his interaction with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

He also asked the Government to release GST compensation for the April-June period at the earliest.

The State has received Rs 512.64 crore from the Government of India in two tranches under the Emergency Response and Health Systems Preparedness package, out of an envelope of Rs 712.64 crore allotted to Tamil Nadu. Palaniswami asked the Centre to increase the package to Rs 3,000 crore.

Since Tamil Nadu has fully exhausted the State Disaster Response and Mitigation Fund already, the State has sought an ad-hoc grant of Rs 1,000 crore from NDRF immediately to fight the pandemic and the pending CMR subsidy of Rs 1,321 crore at this time, will facilitate paddy procurement.

The State requested Sidbi to provide at least Rs 1,000 crore as refinance to Tamil Nadu Industrial Investment Corporation Limited from the RBI special packages. This will help revive MSME industries in Tamil Nadu. The special Covid-19 loan product for SHGs should be implemented by all banks with an enhanced loan amount of at least 2 lakh rupees per group and with enhanced interest subvention, Palaniswami said.

All districts in the state should be included in Category-I for enhanced upfront interest subvention. The CGFMU Scheme of enhanced bulk loans with Government of India guarantee to SHGs should be implemented immediately and also extended to Panchayat Level Federations in Tamil Nadu, said the Chief Minister.