The Jharkhand government on Friday suggested the Centre to extend the GST (goods and services tax) compensation period by five years, and to clear the state’s outstanding dues of around ₹1.36 lakh crore with the central PSUs, largely against non-payment of land compensation.
Representing the state at the conference chaired by Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Jharkhand finance minister Rameshwar Oraon underlined that mining companies must ensure that they resort to proper ‘mining closure’ in order to curb environmental pollution besides checking illegal mining.
“The state is likely to bear revenue loss of around ₹4,500 crore as the state has not been able to earn revenue as per the ‘protected revenue’ and due to end of the compensation period since July this year. I demand that the compensation period be extended by another five years,” Oraon said.
“Coal mining in the state is majorly done by Coal India and its sister concerns, including the CCL, BCCL and ECL. There are huge outstanding dues against the companies. Non-payment of land compensation to the tune of ₹1,01,142 crore being the biggest component of it. These companies also owe ₹32,000 crore as common cause dues and ₹2,900 crore against washed coal royalty. I would urge the (central) government to ensure we get these outstanding dues of ₹1.36 lakh crore,” he added.
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Oraon urged the Centre to provide an airport at Sahibganj where a multi-modal inland riverine port is being developed, besides reducing the contribution of the state government from 50:50 to 50:20 in construction of rail over bridges as the cost of the land is bribe by the state government.
In order to extend relief to farmers, the state government also urged the Centre to process the request of the state government to declare 226 administrative blocks as ‘drought prone’.
