Chandigarh, November 29, 2019 (Yes Punjab News)
The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) today said the Congress government’s performance vis a vis GST collection was the worst in the country and that it was resorting to a mischievous campaign to divert attention from its own failures by accusing the centre of not releasing GST compensation of a mere two months.
Addressing a press conference here, former finance minister Parminder Singh Dhindsa said it was a matter of record that Punjab had recorded the maximum shortfall of 44 per cent in revenue collection through GST in the first five months of 2019-20.
He said the average country wide shortfall was only 21 per cent. He said the GST revenue shortfall due to the government’s inefficiency and mismanagement had already touched Rs 12,000 crore. “This is likely to increase to Rs 20,000 crore in the next two years”, he said adding “a financial emergency is truly in the offing in Punjab”.
Mr Dhindsa asserted that the likely financial emergency was entirely due to the Congress government’s failures on the tax collection front. “The government has achieved only 34 per cent of the tax targets in the first six months of this year and recorded a 14 per cent shortfall. The situation is worse in the non planned sector comprising CLU and mining besides others with only 14 per cent of the targeted revenue being collected till now”.
The Akali leader also clarified that the Congress government was misleading Punjabis by stating that Rs 4,100 crore was due from the centre on account of GST compensation. He said the actual figure for two months was only Rs 2,100 crore. “The remaining Rs 2,000 crore is a claim which the Punjab government is seeking under some other head and which has already been denied to it”.
He also clarified that the Rs 2,100 crore due was part of the 14 per cent year on year compensation promised by the centre while doing away with VAT whose average increase was 13 per cent annually. Stating that Punjab had witnessed zero growth during Congress rule, Mr Dhindsa asked “what will happen when the centre does away with GST compensation after another two years?”
The former finance minister also asked Punjab Congress President Sunil Jakhar to first launch a sit in protest against his own government besides asking chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh why his government had failed so abysmally in collecting tax revenue.
He said instead of resorting to a ‘tamasha’, Jakhar should take a moral and pro-people stand and put pressure on the Congress government to rationalize expenditure and rework its priorities in order to come to terms with the situation.
Stating that Punjabis were paying due to bad financial planning, Mr Dhindsa said development had come to the halt due to lack of tax generation and that this was affecting governance also. “The Congress government needs to set its house in order instead of looking for scapegoats to pass on its failures”, he added.
