Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel laid out suggestions related to the state’s expectations regarding the union budget besides suggesting multiple important proposals interests of the state in a pre-budget meeting held under the chairmanship of the Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman held at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi today.
Baghel demanded to release GST compensation, release Rs 4,140 crore deposited with the Centre on coal mining at the earliest, and reimbursement of expenditure of Rs 15 thousand crores on central security forces deployed for Naxal eradication. Finance ministers of other states of the country were also present in the meeting.
Chief Minister said in the meeting that the Covid-19 pandemic has adversely affected the economy of states with the disruption of economic activities. He suggested that on receiving the amount from the Centre timely, the state government will be able to effectively implement and spend in the developmental programmes and schemes.
Baghel suggested extending the GST compensation period for 05 more years even after June 2022 saying that “the states have faced a drastic revenue loss due to GST implementation and the Centre has not yet made arrangements to compensate the loss of revenue of about Rs 5000 crores to the state in the coming year.”
He added that Chhattisgarh has received less share of central taxes by Rs 13,089 crore in the Union Budget of the last three years. In the coming budget, the share of central taxes should be given to the states completely.
Baghel demanded to transfer Rs 4,140 crore deposited with the Centre at the rate of Rs 294 per tonne on coal mining from the coal block companies to Chhattisgarh at the earliest. He also asked to make a special provision in the next budget to reimburse the state’s expenditure of Rs 15,000 crore on the central security forces deployed in the state for Maoist eradication.
He said that there would be reduction in the amount of the state’s share and also revenue from VAT due to the reduction of Central Excise Tax on petrol and diesel, therefore, in the future; cess should be reduced instead of excise tax.
Baghel also demanded to increase the premium limit of Rs 1100 per family for the states doing better implementation of Ayushman Bharat–Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana saying that this would increase the number of beneficiaries and maximum population will be able to avail its benefits. He also suggested including the families eligible under National Health Insurance Scheme in the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana.
He said that the share of states in the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana and Jal Jeevan Mission should also be reduced and the share of the Centre should be increased to 75 per cent.
Apart from this, Baghel has also demanded to include proposals of International Cargo Terminal at Raipur, a campus of Central Tribal University, shifting of NMDC Headquarters to Chhattisgarh, Regional Office of University Grants Commission to be opened in the State, Regional Office of NAAC in Raipur and establishment of marketing centers for local products under Vocal for Local scheme in the next Union Budget.
In addition, Baghel suggested giving generous amounts to the farmers and laborers through various schemes, to make the wage rate of MNREGA at par with the labor commissioner’s rates and to give special incentives for pulses and oilseeds production.
The Chief Minister urged the Union Finance Minister to set a target of taking at least 23 lakh metric tonnes of parboiled (Usna) rice from Chhattisgarh to the central pool by FCI in the current Kharif marketing year 2021-22. He said that this year 61.65 lakh metric tonnes of rice would be taken by the Food Corporation of India, which would be 100 per cent ‘Arva’ rice. This provision will lead to the closure of parboiled rice mills in Chhattisgarh and the laborers working here will be left unemployed. He also requested reimbursement of the actual cost of gunny bags for procurement of paddy on support price and permission to procure paddy in old gunny bags.
Baghel also urged Union Finance Minister to grant permission for producing ethanol from the surplus paddy available in the state besides urging to make concrete permanent arrangements to ensure availability of financial resources for the welfare of scheduled classes in the budget for the year 2022-23, to increase the amount allocated to the states in the Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan, to allow maintenance expenditure from the allocated amount under Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana, and to fix the share of center and state as 90:10 under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Rural). Chhattisgarh Finance Secretary Alarmel Mangai D. was also present at the meeting.
