KOLKATA: West Bengal Governor CV Ananda Bose said on Sunday that “Bengal is facing financial breakdown“, after meeting the Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman yesterday in New Delhi. The Governor demanded “an emergency cabinet and issuance of white paper“.
“The fiscal situation of West Bengal is confronting multiple fiscal risks and public finance management issues exposing serious lapses from the part of Government,” Bose said in a statement while making a detailed observation.
He also referred to a RBI study, quoting which Bose said, “All state revenue deficit for the year 2023-24 is 0.2% of GSDP. The same ratio for West Bengal is 1.8% . In other words, West Bengal’s revenue deficit is 9 times higher than the all-state average.”
Bose also pointed out that “Bengal ’s fiscal deficit is estimated to be 3.8 % as per the budget estimates of 2023-24. This is higher than the FRBM target specified.by the Fifteenth Finance Commission. The debt to GSDP ratio of West Bengal for the same year is 38.3% when the all-state average is 27.6%.”
“The interest payment to revenue receipts ratio is 20% when the all-state average is much lower at 12%,” Bose said in the statement, quoting the RBi study and has also shared in Raj Bhawan’s X Handle.
The RBI Study on State Finance, as quoted by Bose, further noted that “West Bengal is one of the States that is most reliant on the Central transfer, with a fifth of its revenue coming in the form of grants.”
“The government of West Bengal has also benefitted hugely from successive Finance Commission awards. As per the Fifteenth Finance Commission Award, the Government of West Bengal has been recommended to receive a revenue deficit grant of Rs. 40,115 crore during the period from 2021-22 to 2024-25. This grant is as high as 13.62% of the total revenue deficit grant recommended by the Fifteenth Finance Commission for States,” Bose said, quoting the RBI study.
Trinamool Congress leader and former Rajya Sabha MP Santanu Sen said, “We don’t want to listen to a Governor about financial issues. There are allegations about sexual assault against an employee and he is going to Delhi to save himself.”
