Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar on Sunday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman demanding additional funds for Maharashtra in the wake of the coronavirus lockdown.
In his letter, Sharad Pawar urged the centre to provide “generous financial package” to Maharashtra government while stating that the state will not be in a position to beat the coronavirus pandemic in case there is no fiscal help.
The NCP supremo has requested the centre to extend an additional untied grant of ₹1,00,000 crore to the Maharashtra government for the financial year 2020-21, given that the state is facing a shortfall of a similar amount to sustain projected expenditure in this year.
“It is imperative that in these times the Indian Government should offer sustainable financial assistance to states. The Maharashtra government requests additional grants of untied nature of ₹1 lakh crores for the financial year 2020-21,” Sharad Pawar wrote in his letter which he shared on Sunday on his twitter handle.
The NCP chief further said that the states will play an important role in the “eventual recovery” of the Indian economy. If the financial help is not provided by the centre, states will not be in a position to supplement the required national government efforts, he added.
“Every year, the state makes repayment of loans worth ₹10,500 crores to the centre on account of the NSSF loan,” Pawar said while requesting that the government of India to extend a two-year moratorium on loan repayment as it will help in bridging the likely budgetary gap.
Sharad Pawar also said that the central government should restore to deficit financing as he felt it was efficient and cheaper to borrow money from the union government. Pawar supported the idea of monetisation of a part of the central government deficit.
Maharashtra is the worst-hit state in India due to the coronavirus outbreak with over 8,000 cases. In the last 24 hours, the state has reported 440 fresh COVID-19 cases while the death toll has increased to 342. In Mumbai, the number of cases has risen to 5,194 and the death toll is 204.
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