Mamata ticks off Centre for 'increasing tax burden' on people

She said expenses were increasing for the people by means of service tax and cess

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, on Friday, hit out at the centre for "increasing tax burden" on people and making Aadhaar card mandatory for getting benefit of government schemes.

Banerjee said expenses were increasing for the people by means of service tax and cess.

Even the bill for mediclaim has increased from Rs 17,000 to Rs 30,000, she said and criticised the Centre for Aadhaar cards, saying that 20-30%  people still did not have the cards.

She said poor people would be deprived of the benefits and money from government schemes if they don't have the card.

After the first administrative review meeting of the new government, Banerjee said she had given instructions to restart all development work which had remained stalled for the last few months due to the Assembly polls.

In the last financial year 2015-16, the state plan expenditure budget was Rs 49,507 crore but the actual expenditure was Rs 53,010 crore.

"In other states the total amount of planned expenditure funds is not spent but we exceeded by 15%," she said, adding there is no such instance of actual plan expenditure surpassing the budgeted figure in the last 20 years.

For the new financial year 2016-17, the finance department has released Rs 11,573 crore for which directions were issued to take steps for their immediate utilisation.

In 2010-11, the plan expenditure was around Rs 14,000 crore which has increased by nearly four times to Rs 53,010 crore now.

Moreover, the budgeted figure of Rs 49,507 crore was itself higher than the actual of previous year i.e. Rs 39,444 crore by over 25%.

The budgeted figure is projected higher than the actual of the previous year to target a higher growth trajectory for overall growth.

By achieving the state plan expenditure of Rs 53,010 crore, the state has achieved a year-on-year growth of nearly 35% from the previous year's expenditure of Rs 39,444 crore.