BHUBANESWAR: In agreement with the Mohan Majhi government’s memorandum to the 16th Finance Commission, the BJD on Thursday demanded an increase in devolution of central taxes to states from the current recommended level of 41 per cent to 50 per cent.
The party put forth the demand citing that the levy of surcharges and cesses had left limited options before the states for getting more funds.
Submitting a memorandum addressed to the 16th Finance Commission in this regard, a delegation of the BJD said as the power to impose surcharge and cess are with the Centre, and GST has subsumed all other resource raising avenues, the states are left with very limited options to raise revenue. The memorandum was signed by party president Naveen Patnaik.
The memorandum stated that the ever-increasing surcharges and cesses had reduced the divisible pool of Union taxes with the states. Citing that the share of surcharge and cess to gross revenue of the Centre had increased from 10.4 pc in 2011-12 to 15 pc in 2024-25, the party demanded that it be capped at the 2011-12 level.
The BJD further demanded that the Finance Commission recommends immediate revision of royalty rates of minerals as it has deprived mineral-bearing states like Odisha of a buoyant source of economy. The royalty rates of minerals were last revised by the Centre in September, 2014.
The BJD memorandum stated that Odisha had suffered because of inadequate funds and sector-specific grants from the 14th and 15th Finance Commissions. It demanded sector-specific grants for tourism, handlooms and agri-tech citing their huge potential to create employment in a state like Odisha. The party also reiterated its demand for special category state or special focus state status for Odisha given the repeated natural disasters faced by the state.