Unhappy with the fiscal stimulus package announced by the Union government, West Bengal is looking forward to a second dose.
“I think there should be a second dose,” said Asim Dasgupta, the state finance minister. On the sidelines of the foundation stone laying ceremony of the Currency and Coins museum in Kolkata, he told FE: “The package should have come earlier. There should have been interactions with the states.”
Later, at the Writers Buildings, Dasgupta told reporters that the package is not sufficient. “It will not work. At least the fiscal measures should have been doubled. It would have brought some results then,” he said.
Dasgupta will raise the issue at the meeting of the empowered committee of state finance ministers on December 16 in New Delhi. Dasgupta is also the chairman of the committee.
The state has already urged the central government to minimise the impact of the recommendations of the Sixth Pay Commission. The state finance minister is also likely to raise this issue at the meeting, said a finance department official.
Moreover, state finance ministry officials are apprehensive about recession in sectors like iron & steel and cement.
According to department officials, most of the states are debt-ridden and the Union government’s loans form a sizeable chunk of this debt. “The Union government’s money usually comes in the form of loans and rarely in the form of grants,” an official said.
“There are a lot of (pending) projects in different states. The package has not mentioned anything about these projects,” Dasgupta said.