Chief Minister M.K. Stalin called on Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in New Delhi on Friday and requested her to release ₹20,860.40 crore due to Tamil Nadu so that the State could overcome the fiscal crisis.
In a memorandum, Mr. Stalin said the State was facing a “severe financial stress”, despite the easing of COVID-19, as the revenue was badly affected by the pandemic. The pandemic forced the State to incur an additional expenditure towards upgrading health infrastructure and medical equipment and purchase of drugs and to implement welfare schemes for the vulnerable sections, it said.
Mr. Stalin reiterated the State’s request for extending the GST compensation period by at least two more years beyond June. “In the last five years, there has been a wide gap between the actual revenues realized and the protected revenues guaranteed. This trend was visible even before the pandemic, and the gap has been increasingly wide ever since.”
