The State Government Employees’ Central Federation on Sunday urged the government here to take steps to reduce the fiscal deficit which has climbed to 7 per cent of the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP). The federation advised the government to “strictly follow” the financial road map presented to the Centre and collect all arrears due to the government.
The federation’s general secretary P Lakshmanasamy said that Puducherry had one of the highest fiscal deficits in the country next only to Manipur which has a deficit of 8.4 per cent.
He also raised concerns over the “alarming rise in loan dues” which now stand at Rs 4671 crore at a time when the Union territory’s GSDP is Rs 12,929 crore. This puts the loan GSDP ratio at 35 per cent which is very high. The administration has sought to raise another loan of Rs 800 crore for which it has approached the government of India, Laksmanasamy said.
He, however, claims that the Centre has directed the government here to first bring down the loan GSDP ratio to 25 percent and the deficit to 3 per cent by adhering to the financial road map which it presented before the plan allocation meeting.
Lakshmanasamy added that the government needs to take stern measures to recover dues and control tax evasion. Arrears amounting to around Rs 800 crore, including taxes, remain uncollected, he said. Lakshmanasamy also rejected government’s contention that statehood is the answer to the territory’s financial problems. He noted that Puducherry, being a Union Territory, was getting a much higher per capita allocation from the Central government as compared to the states. While Tamil Nadu gets Rs 2785, Andhra Pradesh gets Rs 3731 and Karnataka gets Rs 3148, Puducherry gets a per capita allocation of Rs 9256. If Puducherry were to become a state the per capital allocation would come down by one third, Lakshmanasamy pointed out.
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