Continuing her tirade against the UPA government at the Centre for allegedly depriving the state of its rightful dues, chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday said that the Centre should allow the states to collect Central taxes and use the revenue to run the state government.
“The Centre collects huge sums from all states in the form of taxes, custom duties and excise duties. If the Centre allows the state to collect Central taxes then we will show how to govern the state,” she said. Ms Banerjee was addressing a convention of the Trinamul Congress’ students and youth wings at the Netaji Indoor Stadium.
She repeated her charge that the Centre collected `40,000 crore as taxes from West Bengal while it gave back only `19,000. In the recent past, Ms Banerjee has become increasingly vocal on this issue. She has complained that her repeated demand for a moratorium for three years on the payment of interest for the `2 lakh crore debt has fallen on deaf ears. “Our annual revenue is `21,000 crore while we have to pay annual interest of `26,000 crore. How will we work then? How do we manage the rural development works unless there is money?” she asked.
The chief minister asked the members of youth and students’ wings to inform the people of the state about her continued deprivation at the hands of a unsympathetic Centre. She gave “training” to the young brigade for the role she wanted them to play in the run up to the panchayat polls. She asked them to tell the people about the constraints under which her government was working due to the callous attitude of the Centre.