Cong govts to review manifesto promises over Centre delaying GST transfers

Former Maharashtra CM Prithviraj Chavan said "resource constraints are a real challenge before the state governments", and not just those run by the Congress

The Congress-run state governments, and those where it is a constituent of the ruling coalitions, have been forced to “review” their manifesto promises with the Centre laggardly in transfer of GST revenues.

Former Maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan said on Wednesday that “resource constraints are a real challenge before the state governments”, and not just those run by the Congress.

On January 20, the Congress constituted ‘five manifesto implementation committees’ for the states it rules – Punjab, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Puducherry. It is also discussing the issue of revenue constraints with its alliance partners in the ruling coalitions in Maharashtra and Jharkhand.

Chavan said the Centre owed at least Rs 15,000 crore to his home state. “The ‘manifesto implementation committees’ would go in to the details with the Congress CMs and compare the manifesto which we promised the people before elections in states like Punjab, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Puducherry and Jharkhand and a constant review will be taken up and will be reported to AICC (central leadership),” he said.

Chavan heads the ‘manifesto implementation committee’ for Madhya Pradesh. P Chidambaram heads the committee for Punjab, Tamradhwaj Sahu heads the committee for Rajasthan, Jairam Ramesh for Chhattisgarh and M Veerappa Moily for Puducherry. According to sources, the Congress run state governments have had to review implementation of some of their manifesto promises, including on farm loan waiver.

“Whatever the Centre has promised states like GST and whatever the transfers were promised are not being given. The Centre is in default of the state governments. Not only Congress-ruled states, but every state government is facing the problem that the Centre is not honouring its commitments to the states. Naturally to that extent, state governments will have difficulty in implementing their manifestos,” Chavan said.

In the run up to the tabling of the Union Budget on Saturday, the Congress has held several press conferences to highlight the “economic mess”. On Wednesday, the Congress asked the Centre to announce a national farm loan waiver, a minimum income scheme and increased allocation for schemes such as MNREGA to ensure more money in rural areas to spur consumer demand and reduce agrarian distress.

Chavan demanded reduction in GST rates on agriculture inputs to less than 5 per cent. He reiterated the Congress demand that petrol and diesel should be brought under the GST regime, saying it will help provide relief to farmers who have been paying higher rates. The Centre has earned over Rs 13.5 trillion by way of taxes on petroleum products, Chavan said.

He alleged that it is a BJP conspiracy to lock-out the Food Corporation of India (FCI) as its government has virtually stopped releasing food subsidy amount to the corporation during the past five years and Rs 1.74 trillion payable to FCI by the Centre is still outstanding.

In the budget for the financial year 2018-19, an agri-market infrastructure fund was announced with a corpus of Rs 2,000 crore. However, the Centre has so far spent only 0.5% of this amount, or Rs 10.45 crore, Chavan said.

He said setting up of 22,000 markets were proposed but out of that work has started on only 376, but even these markets are not fully operational. He said the government should share details of its scheme to constitute 10,000 new farmer producer organizations and fisheries industries.

Chavan alleged farmers are being cheated in the name of the crop insurance scheme. He said only private insurance companies have benefitted. In the year 2019, up to December 31, these insurance companies have given a paltry compensation of only Rs 153 crore to farmers for the kharif crop losses whereas insurance companies received Rs 25,853 crore as insurance premium.