Goa makes case for bigger share of central pie
HERALD REPORTER
PANJIM, JULY 21
The State Government has sought a bigger share in central resources from the Finance Commission.
In a memorandum submitted to the 13th Finance Commission, which was tabled in the House today, Goa has alleged that the Centre was biased towards the smaller States.
The memorandum says that the transfer of resources from Government of India to the State has declined considerably in the recent years.
“This decline is due to the fact that successive Finance Commissions as well as Planning Commissions have given more weightage to population and per capita income rather than efficiency, fiscal performance and higher development of human resource index”, it says adding “the incentive for better fiscal management and financial prudence has been virtually non- existent”.
“We feel that this criterion should be given more weightage”, it adds.
The memorandum points out that against an average annual growth rate of over 10 per cent of total devolution of Central taxes to all States, the annual growth in case of Goa has hardly been three per cent.
“While approximately 0.66 per cent of combined collection of central taxes is generated in Goa, we receive only 0.206 per cent of tax devolution to all the States taken together”, it says.
The State Finance Ministry has said that Goa has brought to the notice of the successive commissions the inherent bias in the existing formula, which needs to be addressed and efficiency needs to be given its due share.
“This is particularly important for a small State like Goa where the revenue generating capacity is limited, while there is always a threshold level of expenditure which any State has to incur irrespective of its size or its population”, the memorandum adds.
The State has also demanded that a special fund of Rs 500-crore corpus be set up for environmental protection efforts in the State.
“The State feels the 13th Finance Commission should recommend incentives for the efforts undertaken for environmental protection and also compensate adequately for the revenue cost of the same”, says the memorandum submitted to the Central panel.
Goa has opined some sort of carbon credit mechanism should be introduced among the States, which will also act as an incentive for environmental protection and promotion.
The memorandum noted that keeping in mind the environmental concerns, the Government has taken a conscious decision to promote only non-polluting industries.
“Although manufacturing sector accounts for a large chunk of the Gross State Domestic Product, its growth has been consciously restricted due to environmental concerns”, it added.
