Kerala Assembly passes resolution against Centre's cuts on grants, state's borrowing limits
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The legislative assembly on Friday passed a resolution urging the Centre to end its 'anti-democratic' practice of treating the states as subordinate units and to desist from slashing the state's borrowing limits and withholding grants.
The resolution, introduced by Finance Minister KN Balagopal, was considered as 'unanimously' adopted as no changes were made to its contents.
However, Opposition MLAs were not present in the Assembly when it was passed as they had staged a walkout earlier.
In the resolution, the Assembly reminded that while the Union government had absolute authority over subjects in the Union list, the Constitution has given the state too had absolute authority in matters included in the state list.
This was clearly stated in the Constitution, it said.
The resolution said Kerala faced a major loss when the 15th Finance Commission decided the state's share of grants. Besides, the Centre went beyond the accepted recommendations of the Finance commission and slashed the state's borrowing limit with retrospective effect from 2021-22.
The Finance Commission recommendations, reported in both houses of parliament with the President's consent, was thrown to the winds by the
Union Finance Ministry when it came to borrowing limits, the resolution said.
"In addition, the grants to the state have been blocked. All these actions amount to endanger the federal system," the resolution said.
It also pointed out that, of late, many transgressions have been seen on the law making and economic rights of states.
The resolution pointed out that while states fund majority of the social welfare projects in the country, large share of the revenue receipts go to the Centre.
It said the Finance Commission was the Constitutional provision to rectify such anomalies.