The Bengal government has lost ₹5,500 crore in revenue in the “two months” of demonetisation, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said here on Friday.
Addressing reporters after an administrative meeting in the city, Banerjee squarely blamed the Centre and its demonetisation policy as the reason for the revenue loss and increasing unemployment in the State.
However, she was quick to add that the revenue loss has not impacted State’s spending plan. Of the ₹58,000 crore (approx) of planned (budgetary) expenditure, over ₹41,300 crore has already been released.
“We have seen a revenue decline of ₹5,500 crore in these two months of demonetisation (November and December). But despite this, we have not cut back on the planned expenditure.
“In fact, we have spent an additional ₹3,000 crore so far this fiscal over last year,” Banerjee said. While the Chief Minister did not mention the areas from which revenue collections have declined, she blamed the Centre for cutting back on project funding.
Demonetisation victims Banerjee claimed that a survey carried out by the State government had revealed that some 1.70 crore people here have been directly impacted by demonetisation.
“Everyone is, of course, adversely impacted. But these are the ones in deep trouble,” she said. According to her, at least 60 per cent of the people in the State are farmers, agricultural labourers, people working in jute mills and tea garden workers, shopkeepers and those from other unorganised sectors. They are worst-affected by demonetisation, she said.
Job losses in the unorganised sectors are on the rise. “Nearly 81 lakh workers have lost jobs across sectors like tea, jute, jeweller and so on,” she said.
It was not clear whether she was referring to national or State-specific figures. Banerjee also expressed apprehensions of a rise in food prices because of shortage of food items in the coming days.
Cash-strapped farmers, she said, were unable to undertake rabi farming.
Interestingly, figures released by the Union Agriculture Ministry last year has shown that till December 30, the sowing of crops in the ongoing rabi season (nationally) increased by 7 per cent to 582.9 lakh hectares from 545.5 lakh hectares a year ago. The Chief Minister, yet again reiterated her demand for having a ‘national government’ at the Centre. The national government should work on a common minimum programme to ensure that the economy is not impacted.
“This PM is not capable of running the country. There should be a national government. I do not mind if it is headed by BJP leaders like LK Advani, Rajnath Singh or Arun Jaitley. But this PM must go,” she insisted.