Hiking tax rates crucial to achieve 9pc growth, says FM Thiaga Rajan

Hinting at a possible hike in tax in the coming years, Finance Minister Palanivel Thiaga Rajan said it was essential to revise the rates to achieve the growth rate that the State was aspiring for. He was replying to the debate on the budget in the Assembly on Thursday. “If we want an increase in growth to 9 per cent from 6 per cent, we need to change the rates. If we continue to mishandle our financial resources, we might lose up to Rs 10,000 crore,” the Minister added.

Stressing on the importance of integrating public institutions, Thiaga Rajan questioned the need for so many financial institutions. “We have only 350 IAS officers in the State. With the limited resources, we need to manage districts and departments. We also don’t need so many public sector units,” he said. The modernisation measures would begin from his own department, with a dashboard, which would help monitor the financial health of the State in real-time, to be set up in two years. A new system, which would integrate all activities of Tasmac, would be introduced. Pointing out that an ecologically sound mining policy was needed, he said the State would adopt state-of-the-art technology from Odisha and even Australia if needed.

Taking on the Centre and Governor, and criticising the judiciary, Thiaga Rajan said as many as 19 legislations enacted by the Assembly were either not given the assent by the Governor, President and the Union government, or were being struck down by the courts. “All the laws are adopted by the Assembly for the welfare of people, but they don’t get realised,” he said.

On the final day of the Budget session, he presented the final supplementary statement of further expenditure for 2021-22. The supplementary estimates placed before the House amounts to Rs 10,567.01 crore, of which Rs 8,908.29 crore is in the revenue account and Rs 1,658.72 crore is in capital and loan accounts. Thiaga Rajan added that none of the five members of the Chief Minister’s Economic Advisory Council, all of whom are globally renowned economists, received even a penny from the State government despite financial allocation being made for their travel expenses.