West Bengal faces possible own-tax revenue shortfall

Kolkata: The West Bengal budget for 2015-16, presented on Friday in the Assembly by state Finance Minister Amit Mitra, has showed a revised own-tax collection of Rs 40,062 crore for 2014-15 against the budgeted estimate of Rs 45,413 crore.

Tax revenues are composed of states' own-tax revenues and share in central taxes. The budgeted estimate of own-tax revenue collection for 2015-16 has been pegged at Rs 46,500 crore, an increase of only Rs 1,000 crore from the earlier budget projection. The government is fully confident of meeting the target as the month of March is still ahead.

Without any fresh tax proposals in the budget, the finance minister has given several concessions in the form of increasing the level of VAT threshold, amnesty scheme for dealers who were still outside the VAT fold, VAT relief to the MSME sector and stamp duty relief among others.

Mitra in his budget speech said that the state was carrying a huge debt burden left by the previous government and repeated pleas to the Centre for waiver of interest payments went unheeded. He said that the budget aimed to create 17.5 lakh new employment opportunities across various sectors.

Fiscal deficit as per the medium-term fiscal policy statement was 2.98 per cent of GSDP (against the budget figure of 1.91 per cent) during 2014-15. For the current fiscal, it has been pegged at 1.74 per cent of GSDP. Describing the situation as "grave owing to the debt trap", Mitra said there were apprehensions that some centrally sponsored schemes like 100 days work might be curtailed which would seriously jeopardise the interest of West Bengal.

Lauding the increased devolution of resources by the recommendations of the 14th Finance Commission, Mitra said that the demand of the state for a debt waiver had been ingored. Other new initiatives announced in the budget were providing 40 lakh cycles to students in two years, enhancement of scholarship under `Kanyashri' scheme from Rs 500 to Rs 750, providing financial assistance of Rs 10,000 to small and marginal farmers, social security for transport workers among others.