With reference to "A time bomb is ticking towards a fiscal crisis in states" (August 8), the interview with Bengal Finance Minister Amit Mitra is a serious disappointment. Instead of laying out a path for the future, he has repeated the lame and dead excuses handed out by the discredited Left government and its platoon of fellow-travelling experts. The Left front had failed in financial management, marked by possibly the lowest tax to state GDP ratio among all big states, poor user charge collection such as in case of electricity, poor expenditure control and a lazy over-reliance on small savings that end up as loan in the state's books.
The Trinamool Congress (TMC) was aware of the debt burden and trajectory when it fought for power in 2011 and 2016. True, the Left government accumulated too much debt, but then one inherits the good things along with the bad. Blaming the Centre for approving loans serves no purpose; the Centre wasn't doing the maths nor providing a counter-guarantee. A central government waiver will set a most unhealthy precedent, be fiscally irresponsible and accentuate the moral hazard factor. After all, the state was not a victim of severe natural disasters.
Comparing Bengal with Maharashtra or Andhra Pradesh is disingenuous. Those state economies are much larger with a better tax-GDP ratio. Their debt servicing capacity, hence, is much more. While the TMC government has improved the tax-GDP ratio, much remains to be done on that front and in curbing non-essential populist measures and privatisation. Just focusing on improved indirect tax collection in three to four areas like Howrah, Burrabazar to Chandni, Asansol-Durgapur and Siliguri, will be most rewarding.
P Datta Kolkata
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