Bengaluru:Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Wednesday stated to have written letters to his counterparts in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra, Gujrat, Haryana and Punjab for a conclave to be hosted in Bengaluru city in coming days to deliberate on the unfair devolution of taxes by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led Central Government.
In the letters to Chief Ministers, Siddaramaiah stated to intimate them on dates to host a conclave once the schedule is finalized. Disclosing it on his social networking site, Siddaramaiah said “I have invited them to a conclave to collectively deliberate on the issues of fiscal federalism at a juncture when the Finance Commission needs to make a directional shift and create incentives for growth and better tax mobilization.”
Continuing, he said, States such as Karnataka with higher Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) per capita are being penalized for their economic performance, receiving disproportionately lower tax allocations by the Central Government. This “unjust” approach undermines the spirit of cooperative federalism and threatens the financial autonomy of progressive States such as Karnataka.
“The previous Finance Commission laid excessive emphasis on equity at the cost of efficiency and performance,” Siddaramaiah pointed out. In a letter to Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, Siddaramaiah said he emphasized to the 16th Finance Commission during their visit to Bengaluru on August 29 and 30 that the reduction in central financial transfers to well performing States is placing severe limitations on their ability to invest in physical and human infrastructure.
Siddaramaiah said he felt a need to articulate a coordinated set of proposals before the Commission and also there is an urgent need to balance equity with efficiency and performance for a stronger Union, both politically and economically.