Pul seeks one time fincial grant from Centre

FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT

Itagar, June 7: Aruchal Pradesh Chief Minister Kalikho Pul has urged the Centre for a one-time fincial grant of Rs 5214.28 crores, pending to the state to carry out its ambitious infrastructure development plans besides addressing other social sector challenges.

Pul, during a meeting with Union Fince Minister Arun Jaitley at New Delhi yesterday said the amount has been pending due to various liabilities created during the previous government, an official communiqué informed.

"Out of the total amount, Rs 1801 crore are the liabilities created by the previous government and Rs 1264.22 crore liabilities created under the CSS schemes. The state also inherited a shortfall of Rs 2149.06 crore in the central share of taxes acquired over the two years," Pul said during the meeting which was also attended by Union Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju.

The chief minister said that, a liability of Rs. 2421 crores was created in the fincial year 2014-15, which was carried forward in 2015-16. Of this, over Rs 1400 crores pertained to liabilities of Special Plan Assistance, 13th Fince Commission Grants, NEC, Civil Deposit and NLCPR schemes.

He informed that Rs 968 crores of liabilities were cleared last year since funding could not be stopped midway for several on-going development projects, which had a cascading impact on the resource position in the year 2015-16.

Further liabilities were created in the Fincial Year 2015-16 to the extent of Rs 1801 crores, which were brought forward in the current fincial year due to mindless spending by the previous government, Pul informed and added that the state's poor fincial magement resulted in an overdraft scerio to the tune of Rs. 581.38 crores for a prolonged period in 2015-16.

He informed that in the fincial year 2015-16, the state received Rs. 7075.58 crores as share of central taxes as against the 14th Fince Commission (FFC) recommendation of Rs. 7936.16, leaving a short fall of Rs. 860.58 crores.

"Similarly in the Union Budget 2016-17 there has been a lesser provision and the state has been allocated a sum of Rs. 7868.94 crores as against the FFC recommendations of Rs. 9157.42 crores thereby resulting in a short provisioning of Rs 1288.48 crores," Pul pointed out.

"In effect, the resource scarce state has been deprived of a total of Rs. 2149.06 crores for the last two years on the account of FFC grants alone," he added.

Pul said, to make matters worse, Aruchal has received only Rs. 1980.78 crores under CSS in 2015-16 as against a commitment of Rs. 3245 crores, with a shortfall of Rs. 1264.22 crores, thereby adversely affecting crucial development projects.

The chief minister further informed that a large part of the central grants were used for servicing on non-plan expenditures such as on salaries, wages, maintence of roads & bridges, power purchase, which amounted to Rs. 7660.38 crore during 2015-16 and is estimated at Rs. 9358.06 crore during 2016-17.

"If the Centre agrees on our request for clearance of fincial dues, then we can carry forward our development activities or else it is going to be very difficult," Pul added.