Centre is deceiving Tamil Nadu in tax distribution : Thangam Thennarasu

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu Minister for Finance and Human Resources Management Thangam Thennarasu on Wednesday flayed the Union government for deceiving the state and said that the Centre is handling Tamil Nadu with a surrogate mother attitude.

Responding to the discussion over the presentation of supplementary estimates for the year 2023-24 in the Legislative Assembly, the Finance minister Thangam Thennarasu said, "The Tamil Nadu government gave Rs 5.16 lakh crores to the Centre as tax contribution between 2014 to 2022 and the Centre tax sharing was Rs 2.08 lakh crores to Tamil Nadu and the tax sharing is more in the states ruled by BJP."

Thennarasu also said that only 64 per cent of the disaster relief funds have been available to Tamil Nadu while 200 per cent of the disaster relief funds have been provided to Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.

Slamming the Union government, the state minister said that the Union government is providing Rs 1.5 lakh for each urban housing project and the remaining Rs 7 lakh is being provided by the state government but the name of the project is Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY).

"The Centre is deceiving Tamil Nadu in the distribution of funds. For every rupee that Tamil Nadu pays in taxes to the Union government, the state gets back only 29 paise. But for every rupee paid by the BJP ruling states, Rs 2.73 are returned, " he detailed.

'Tax distribution is higher in NDA regime than UPA regime'

Meanwhile, the Tamil Nadu Bharatiya Janata Party president K Annamalai said that during the 10-year Congress-DMK alliance regime, the amount of tax distribution and assistance given to Tamil Nadu was only Rs 1.5 lakh crores but Narendra Modi-led NDA government has provided Rs 10.76 lakh crore to Tamil Nadu in last nine years.

Condemning the DMK government, the saffron party leader further said, "Thangam Thennarasu is giving untruthful information in the Assembly is strongly reprehensible when the Central government's tax distribution and the value of the projects are more than twice the direct tax contribution of Tamil Nadu. DMK's tradition of telling lies repeatedly to make people believe the truth is no longer valid."