Kolkata: Trinamool Congress on Sunday urged the governor to stop reading “WhatsApp university dispatches and start reading Bengal’s budget documents” after CV Ananda Bose flagged the “financial breakdown faced” and demanded an “emergency state cabinet and a white paper” on the state’s finances. Bose made the statements after meeting Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in Delhi on Saturday.
On Sunday, Trinamool’s Rajya Sabha MP Sagarika Ghose rebutted the governor, claiming Bengal’s GSDP (gross state domestic product) had expanded almost four times from Rs 4 lakh crore in 2010-11 to over Rs 17 lakh crore in 2023-24.She said the rate of growth in Bengal was 11.4%, as against the national growth rate of 8%. The debt-GDP ratio had come down from 42% in 2011-12 to 30%.
“GSVA manufacturing growth is 7% in Bengal, national average is 6.5%. Bengal state revenues are up 10% year on year basis,” she wrote X, adding: “Stop reading dispatches from WhatsApp University only. Read Bengal’s Budget Statement instead.”
Bose, who on Saturday night took to X to demand an “emergency cabinet” and “issuance of white paper”, alleged that Bengal’s revenue deficit stood 9 times higher than the average across states and the fiscal deficit was higher than the FRBM limit (fiscal responsibility and budget management) prescribed by the fifteenth Finance Commission. He also claimed that the debt to GSDP ratio was significantly higher than the national average and 38% of the state’s income went towards repayment of loans.
Bose also said more than half of the state’s revenue was “actually from the transfers from the central govt”, leaving the state with very low fiscal autonomy. In 2023-24, out of Bengal’s total revenue of Rs. 2.13 lakh crore, central transfer was Rs. 1.17 lakh crore — around 55%, he wrote. Calling an “urgent attention to fiscal imbalance” in the state, Bose called upon CM Mamata Banerjee, under Article 167 of the Constitution (read with rule 30 of the Rules of Business for West Bengal), to place a comprehensive report on the state’s financial situation before the council of ministers.
Trinamool’s former Rajya Sabha MP Kunal Ghosh said Bose, being the head of the state “should have asked the FM for disbursal of the state’s dues”. “If Bengal’s real interests are in his mind, not politics, he should have asked the Union finance minister to release Bengal’s legitimate dues under the 100-day-work scheme and Awas Yojana. Centre is choking Bengal of its dues, and the governor instead of helping people is resonating a BJP agenda. He should have known the way her (the FM) husband (Parakala Prabhakar) has criticised Centre for its fiscal mismanagement. Instead, he played the role of a traitor to the state by not even asking for its dues,” he said.