Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan has said the Comptroller and Auditor General’s recent report only underscored facts regarding Kerala’s economic crisis pointed out by the United Democratic Front (UDF) in two white papers.
“The State has failed to collect tax and arrears. The government alone is responsible for the fiscal crisis. While there has been a marked rise in prices of commodities that naturally led to a rise in taxes, the collection does not reflect that,” Mr. Satheesan said here on Saturday.
The Opposition, he said, had warned earlier that external borrowings for disbursal of pension and projects funded by the Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board (KIIFB) would be counted as the State’s borrowing. A fair share of the blame should be with the State government, and while the Centre was also at fault for denying the State’s revenue share in the divisive pool, the State was trying to hide its fault by putting all the blame on the Centre, he said.
