Ludhiana: Asking the state of Punjab to wake up to the reality of its fiscal condition and hypocrisy of the central government, Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC) President Navjot Singh Sidhu revealed the disturbing side of state economics on Thursday.
Sidhu's comments come in the wake of the central government set to discontinue its GST compensation grant starting June 2022.
"The Central Government is soon to discontinue the GST compensation grant in June 2022 which is set to cause a dramatic increase in the fiscal deficit of the state amounting to Rs.18,000 crore annually," Sidhu said in a statement.
It has been revealed that the income generated from tax collection and grants of central government schemes amounts to around Rs. 75,000 crore.
However, salaries and pensions, interest expenditure on previous loans, as well as repayment of principal loan amount itself comes to Rs. 100,000 crore which is a fixed expense of the state, causing it to be in continuous debt, Sidhu added.
Cricketer-turned-politician demanded that the state must continue to get the GST compensation grant even after June 2022 for another 5 years, which is a matter of right for the people due to the faulty implementation of GST by the Central Government.
"With additional losses of Rs 9000 crore on VAT and Rs 5000 crore on power subsidy, the state is made to fall at the mercy of the Centre," Sidhu further said.
Referring to the Gram Panchayat system in Punjab, he said it does not have a functional Gram Panchayat system and promised to rebuild it from the scratch.
The Punjab Model, the PPCC president claimed, will bring people’s power back to its people and promises to work towards reducing state debt and making it a flourishing state again.
