Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said the Gulati Institute of Finance and Taxation (GIFT) has pegged the State’s potential loss of revenue this fiscal at ₹1,25,657 crore.
The Budget had forecast the State’s income would touch ₹1,14,636. However, it seemed the treasury would get only ₹81,180 crore. The GIFT pegged the predicted shortfall in revenue at ₹35,455 crore.
Rise in expenditure
The State’s social and health sector expenditure had increased exponentially. Kerala’s revenue and fiscal deficits were bound to skyrocket, Mr. Vijayan said here on Friday.
Mr. Vijayan slammed the Centre for depicting its mandatory allocation to the National Disaster Response Fund as a special grant for States to combat COVID-19. He said Kerala had received ₹157 crore for tackling the pandemic. It was just a part of the ₹357 crore owed by the Centre.
Demand ignored
The Centre has repeatedly ignored Kerala’s demand to sanction individual grants by including the outlay in the report of the 15th Finance Commission.
It has also pointedly disallowed the State to raise its credit limit from the current 3% to 5%.
The Centre had raised its credit limit to 5%. However, it refused to give the same freedom to the States. The unhelpful stance of the Central government ran against the grain of federalism, Mr. Vijayan said.
The government would conduct a survey to assess the economic and social fallout of the pandemic, he said.
