Chidambaram lauds States for refusing to accept Centre’s option of borrowing from RBI to bridge GST compensation gap
The collapse of the Indian economy started with the November 2016 demonetisation, former Congress president Rahul Gandhi alleged on Tuesday.“GDP -23.9. The destruction of the country’s economy started with the Demonetization. Since then, the government has been bringing in wrong policies one after another”, he tweeted.Echoing him, senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh tweeted the “chronology” of the slide. “1. Demonetisation & botched up GST killed growth. 2. Tax cuts put money in hands of corporates instead of people. Consumption collapsed. 3. Unplanned lockdown led to total meltdown of economy. When will Govt wake up instead of covering up?” he said.“Government now saying worst is over & economic recovery is on the horizon. Well, it’s a distant horizon & most certainly India’s GDP contraction for FY20-21 will be terrible. It means unprecedented loss of livelihoods & opportunities! Remember, this disaster started well before COVID19”, he added.Priyanka’s chargeParty leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra also accused the Modi government of sinking the economy even though Mr. Gandhi had forewarned about an economic tsunami six months ago.And as some Opposition-ruled State governments refused to ‘accept’ the option of directly borrowing from Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to bridge the gap in GST compensation, former Union Finance Minister P. Chidamabaram lauded their stance and asserted that the Centre should bear the burden of additional borrowing.At the GST Council meet on August 27, the Centre expressed its inability to pay GST compensation to the States this time for the loss of revenue and asked them to borrow directly from Reserve Bank of India (RBI).‘Bogus options’In a series of tweets, Mr. Chidambaram called the options as “bogus”. He said, “Congratulations to the finance ministers of Punjab, Chhattisgarh, Kerala, West Bengal, Telangana and Delhi for rejecting the bogus twin options given by the central government to bridge the GST Compensation gap. As far as I know, Rajasthan and Puducherry have also rejected the two options. Happy that Tamil Nadu has also rejected the two options”.“The States must not allow the Centre to evade its legal and moral responsibility to compensate the States for the revenue shortfall. The financial burden of additional borrowing must be borne by the Centre,” he added.
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