THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Braving financial constraints, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Tuesday announced Onam kit comprising 14 items to all ration card holders. The cash-strapped government has allocated Rs 425 crore for the scheme.Addressing a press conference, Pinarayi said each kit will have 13 essential food and grocery items and a cloth bag. He recalled how the government provided kits 13 times during the Covid period spending Rs 5,500 crore from the exchequer.
The ‘kit politics’, which political observers feel was a major factor that had helped the LDF return to power last year, is suddenly back as the government is on the defensive in a host of political issues.
Pinarayi was scathing on his criticism of the Union government which, he said, was hampering the state’s development.
“When the state government is trying to ensure development and people’s welfare through constructive interventions, the Centre is imposing restrictions on the net borrowing ceiling on the state...The Indian economy is not rid of the adverse impact of the pandemic. This phase requires more measures by the government to boost the economy, especially capital expenditure. Covid hit Kerala when it was on the path of fiscal consolidation. The pandemic period also saw a rise in the fiscal and revenue deficits of central and state governments,” he said.
The CM alleged that the Centre was trying to defeat Kerala’s policy to allocate a fixed percentage of revenue income for capital expenditure and to implement development projects through the KIIFB. He claimed that KIIFB’s loans are repaid from its own revenue. “To term it a liability of the state government is contrary to Article 293 of the Constitution as pointed out by legal experts. The centre is wrong in deeming KIIFB borrowings as state government’s borrowing. KIIFB borrowings are based on government guarantees, and they are not direct liability of the government. The state has asked the Centre to withdraw from slashing the net borrowing ceiling (NBC) of the state,” he said.
On July 22, Finance Minister K N Balagopal wrote a detailed letter to Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman requesting to exclude borrowings by state government entities while determining the NBC. He questioned the competence of Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) to classify borrowings of state government agencies as off-budget borrowings (OBBs).
CM: Centre not imposing limits on its borrowings
An oft-repeated argument is that the CAG has classified borrowings by state government’s agencies as off-budgetary, the minister said. It was the basis for use of Article 293(3) by the Ministry of Expenditure to slash the state’s NBC. “While the state government has consistently maintained that such classification is erroneous, suffice it to say, the powers of the CAG extend only to matters related to accounting and auditing of public money and not to the interpretation of the provisions that regulate the financial powers of the Union and the States under the Constitution. This power solely falls within the domain of judiciary, said CM.
He criticised the Union government for not imposing any such limits on its own borrowings by taking into account those of the agencies set up by it. Balagopal said the scope of Article 293(3) and (4) are limited to the State as defined under Article I (1) of the Constitution and that cannot be extended to include the debt of government agencies.
PINARAYI’S VOW ON NEW GST HOLLOW
CM’s announcement on not implementing new GST on select food items comes a week after the new rate has been enforced in state.
‘Need to implement SilverLine speedily’
SilverLine semi-high speed rail project needs to be speedily implemented, and people who support the state’s development should intervene in correcting the Centre’s stand on the project, the CM has said.