The State will have to augment its health-care facilities further to manage a reverse migration from Gulf countries soon in the face of the COVID-19 threat. The Centre should immediately chip in to ease the mounting strain on the State finances, says Finance Minister T.M. Thomas Isaac.
Interacting with The Hindu, Dr. Isaac said “quarantine and testing facilities have to augmented. An emotional support has also become imperative for those rendered jobless and are annoyed over their career prospects in the Gulf. We are anticipating a major spurt in demand for such facilities for which paucity of funds is the only hitch. A dip in returns from Non-Resident Keralites (NoRKs) would only compound the crisis,” he said.
The State has not received any Central assistance to check the virus spread. “The Centre could not gloss over its lapse and should fulfil its Constitutional obligation to devolve funds,” he said.
Welfare pension
Disbursal of seven months’ welfare pensions and the salary for March had commenced, but exhausting a lion’s share of the borrowing limit for the current year would deepen the crisis in the months ahead.
Securing funds for managing the routine administrative affairs and meeting the committed expenditure would be a tough challenge. Which means the Centre should transfer the Goods and Service Tax compensation and due share from the divisible tax pool. Last year there was a shortfall of ₹1,26,000 crore, for which no amends had been made so far, he said.
“The post-lockdown scenario would be even more bleak and disturbing. The first priority would be to iron out a strategy for putting the economy back on the rails, reviving production of essentials and also the micro, small and medium enterprises sector that bore the brunt of the disaster.
The Chief Minister is micro-managing all such areas to avert a collapse.
The collective effort of the government, administrative machinery, local bodies and most importantly the people would help overcome the crisis,” he said.
