Describing the Congress government’s allegations of the State suffering injustice from the Centre in terms of devolution of funds as “false”, former Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy on Thursday invited the Congress for a public debate on the issue. He assured the Assembly that he would “fight for Karnataka’s cause” if the Congress government proved its claim with facts.
Participating in a debate in the Assembly on motion of thanks to the Governor’s address to the joint session of the State legislature, Mr. Kumaraswamy said he was confident that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would not do injustice to the State. “The Congress government has announced various schemes without arranging for finances. Hence, it is now trying to blame the Centre,” he alleged.
‘Factually incorrect’
He said the Congress’ allegations of the State getting only 13% share of taxes collected by it were “factually incorrect” as the State was actually getting 58% of the tax share. He explained that if the State collected ₹1,000 as GST, 50% (₹500) would be given to it while 42% of the remaining money would be given to the pooled account of States.
He maintained that the 15th Finance Commission (15th FCC) set up by the NDA regime had actually given more funds to Karnataka than the 14th finance commission set up during the UPA regime.
Finance commission
Explaining that the 15th finance commission had prescribed five norms for devolution of funds for transparent process, he said Karnataka had benefitted as the 15th FCC had reduced the weightage given to States with more poverty from the earlier 50% to 45%. Area of the State was another parameter that had not been altered by the 15th commission, he said. However, the commission had reduced the weightage given to population from the earlier 27% to 15%, which too had helped Karnataka, he claimed.
He alleged that the Congress government which was blaming the Centre for not getting financial assistance was actually yet to fully utilise the Central funds given to various schemes. Of the total Central grant of ₹16,764 crore, the State had managed to spend only ₹1,639 crore accounting for 34%, he claimed. Similarly, the State was yet to spend 38% of its own budgetary allocations accounting for ₹1.13 lakh crore, he alleged.
‘Confrontationist approach’
Earlier in the day, Mr. Kumaraswamy said the State government’s “confrontationist approach” with the Central government had led to denial of permission for increasing the number of man days from 100 to 150 under the MGNREGA.
When he was the Chief Minister in the Congress-JD(S) coalition government in 2018, the Prime Minister had granted permission to increase the number of man days from 100 to 150 when the State was reeling under drought, Mr. Kumaraswamy said.
