The minister was responding to a question from Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury in the Lok Sabha on the Karnataka government’s claim that the Centre is not releasing funds that are due to the state.
“This apprehension that some states are being discriminated against is a politically vitiated narrative which, I am sorry to say, vested interests are happy to go about saying,” she said during the Question Hour.
No union finance minister can play around with the Finance Commission’s recommendations, Sitharaman said.
“This is just not a possibility that any finance minister can intervene to say that ‘I don’t like this state, stop payment’ … It can’t happen that way as the system is well placed,” Sitharaman said, adding that the devolution of goods and services tax is also periodically reviewed by the GST Council.
Taking a jibe at the opposition’s poll promises in states, she said: “If the expenditure is going in areas which cannot be sustained by your budget, I am not answerable”.She said under GST, the state GST is fully collected by the state and the integrated GST (IGST) is collected by the Centre as it deals with inter-state payments. “Then the money is accumulated under the IGST; it is divided grossly at 50-50 to all states and gets reconciled over time when the data comes up,”” she said.Replying to another question, Sitharaman said cess compensation is done on the basis of certificates provided by the accountant general.
“In the case of Kerala, the accountant general’s certificate has been received for four years except the first quarter of 2022-23,” Sitharaman said.
The finance minister said Nagaland has not given the accountant general’s certificate for any year since 2017, while Sikkim has not given it for three years and West Bengal for four years – it varies from state to state.
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