Post News Network
Bhubaneswar/New Delhi, Dec 26: The state government Friday demanded compensation from the Centre for the revenue loss suffered by the state for Paradeep Refinery of Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL) and imposition of tax on goods sold through e-commerce platform.
During the pre-budget consultation meeting convened by Union finance minister Arun Jaitley in New Delhi, state finance minister Pradip Kumar Amat demand a suitable fiscal instrument to compensate the revenue sacrifised by state for 11 years after commissioning of the 15 million tonne IOCL refinery at Paradeep.
The refinery is scheduled to go on stream in March 2015. As the state government has granted VAT exemption to the oil major for 11 years from the date of commissioning of the refinery, no revenue would flow to the state during this period.
Amat also demanded imposition of tax on goods sold through e-commerce at the consumption point to counter onslaught of e-retailers and suggested collection of taxes by the consuming state. Amat, who was accompanied by additional chief secretary (finance) R Balakrishnan suggested creation of a corpus fund of Rs 1,000 crore at the level of National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) to provide financial and technical support to the state and central cooperative banks. ‘‘The fund may help provide financial and technical support to the state and central cooperative banks for introducing a mechanism to capture early warning signals of weakness and take up corrective measures for revamping banks at the earliest. The proposed corpus fund would provide assistance to the weak banks for a turnaround within a specific time-frame,’’ Amat said at the meeting.
On the issue of financial inclusion, he urged Jaitley to issue suitable direction to commercial banks for opening brick and mortar branches in 4,597 unbanked panchayats in the state by March 2019.
He also demanded implementation of the National Waterway-5 to link Paradeep and Dhamra ports with their hinterland, concessional loan from banks to fishermen, dairy farmers and weavers on par with agricultural activities, and reduction of the premium for crop insurance.
