Kerala is yet again set to take the lead in evolving consensus among Finance Ministers of other States to mount pressure on the Centre for wresting an assistance to tide over the crisis triggered by COVID-19.
Finance Minister T.M. Thomas Isaac is learnt to have made preliminary arrangements for holding a conference of Finance Ministers for evolving a course of action to compel the Centre to share its available resources with the States that are reeling under an acute resource crunch.
A video conference of Ministers of non-BJP ruled States has been planned as a first step and back channel parleys of tax commissioners have also been mooted to work out the plan. This move is being contemplated in the face of the Centre’s lukewarm response to the repeated pleas for financial assistance.
Though the State government has made calibrated moves to ensure that the situation is not going out of hand, the surge in the number of quarantined families and also daily wage labourers, autorickshaw drivers, domestic workers and legions of such others who have been rendered unemployed following the lockdown is annoying the government.
The government has worked out a system to disburse the welfare pensions through the cooperative banks and provide loans to indigent sections through the Kudumbashree network. Still, there is a crying need to attend to the primary needs of a large number of people who do not figure in any of these networks and they cannot be left in the lurch, sources said.
Kerala is planning to replicate the movement launched at the behest of Dr. Isaac against the terms of reference of the 15th Union Finance Commission. A collective movement of non-BJP ruled States forced the Centre to come out with an explanation. Since all States are battling an acute paucity of funds, even the BJP-ruled States are likely to sympathise with the State’s demand to release the Goods and Services Tax compensation arrears as well as other dues from the Centre. A final picture would emerge within the next three or four days, sources said.
