We will have to approach court against Centre to seek justice on devolution of funds, says CM

Heightening the Congress government’s fight against the Centre with respect to devolution of funds, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Monday (March 9) indicated that the State might approach courts to seek justice.

“The Centre has been constantly meting out injustice to Karnataka in terms of devolution of funds. But it is difficult to get justice from the GST Council as a majority of its members are from the BJP. Hence, going to the court is the only option for us,” the Chief Minister told the Congress legislators while interacting with them on various aspects of the Budget at an orientation programme organised by the Karnataka Assembly Secretariat in Bengaluru.

He pointed out that the State had earlier managed to get drought relief assistance of about ₹3,000 crore from the Centre after it had approached the Supreme Court.

The Chief Minister also brushed aside the allegations of the Opposition that he had borrowed indiscriminately and pointed out that the State’s total loan burden that stood at ₹8.24 lakh crore was well within 25% of GSDP as per norms. However, the Centre’s loan burden of ₹2.18 lakh crore accounted for 55.6% of GDP. Similarly, the fiscal deficit of the State was well within the 3% limit as against the Centre’s 4.4%, he said.

The Chief Minister, who presented his 17th State Budget a few days ago, appeared to have set the tone for the debate to ensue on the State Budget during this interaction by squarely blaming the Centre for the revenue deficit. The Opposition — BJP and JD(S) members — stayed away from the orientation programme.

“The GST rationalisation by the Centre and the Finance Commission’s decision to keep the State’s share of devolution of Central funds at a lower rate besides the Centre’s failure to provide full grants towards its share in the Centrally sponsored projects has come in the way of presenting the revenue surplus Budget. If we had received full grants from the Centre, we would have presented a revenue surplus Budget,” he said.

He added that though Karnataka stood second in the country in terms of GST collection and passed on revenues to the tune of ₹4.50 lakh crore to the Centre, in return, the State would get only ₹73,000 core. “In other words, Karnataka will get only 15 paise for every rupee it gives to the Centre,” he said.