Punjab government today hit out at the 14th Finance Commission while accusing it of doing "grave injustice" to the state by denying the revenue deficit grant.
"The 14th Finance Commission has done grave injustice to Punjab by not giving the revenue deficit grant. The base of their assumption (or denying revenue deficit grant) is against Punjab's interest," Punjab Finance Minister Parminder Singh Dhindsa said here today.
He stated that the Commission had not considered its power subsidy as expenditure for working out the grant.
"The only expenditure which was not considered by the commission was our power subsidy. It considers subsidy to industry, but it does not consider subsidy given to farmers," he said.
Further, he questioned why different methodologies were adopted for Punjab in calculating its revenue deficit grant, and also called upon the Centre to address the issue on priority basis.
"The central government should address the issue because 14th Finance Commission is just a recommending authority," he said.
Punjab doles out free power subsidy worth Rs 6,000 crore to farmers per annum.
The 14th Finance Commission had removed Punjab from the list of states needing revenue deficit grant after recognising the "fiscal turnaround" of the state.
SAD-BJP led Punjab government had been demanding revenue deficit grant and Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal had earlier taken up the issue with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.
The state had also demanded that it be included in the list of debt-stressed states, enabling it to get revenue deficit grant. After being excluded from the list, the state lost revenue deficit grant of about Rs 3,500 crore.
As per the 14th Finance Commission report submitted in December 2014, the total revenue deficit grant was worked out at Rs 1,94,821 crore for the period 2015-20. But no grant was sanctioned for Punjab.
