Additional Chief Secretary says certain riders with the Government are deciding to go in for phased prohibition
Picture for representational purpose
Thiruvananthapuram: Commenting on Justice C.N. Ramachandran Nair’s controversial statement, Additional Chief Secretary (Finance) V.Somasundaran said the State would incur a loss of Rs1,800 cr this fiscal year when the bars close down. He said the issue of closing down the bars had already been discussed with the Finance and Taxes Departments when the Government proposed to have only five star bars. Somasundaran who will be taking charge as Union Civil Aviation Secretary on Wednesday, feels that there are certain riders with the Government deciding to go in for phased prohibition.
One of his suggestions is that the Government consciously reduce the State’s expenses akin to what the Central Government had done early last year when over a period of five years they decided to reduce the number of posts in various departments by 16-17 per cent. “When the bar issue came before the respective Finance and Taxes Departments, we calculated the imminent loss and put it at Rs1,800 cr per annum. As for closing down 10 per cent of the Bevco outlets, it depends on their location as some of them are in prominent areas where sales would be high. So we will have to check on the loss of Bevco outlets every year”, said Somasundaran.
However, he feels that Justice Ramachandran Nair may have commented on a different note as the Pay Commission has to normally keep in view the Government’s ability to meet additional expenses. The 10th Pay Commission members are slated to hold meetings with the Finance Department soon and prior to that they will be taking stock of the fiscal situation where stakeholders’ opinions will be collected in addition to putting up a questionnaire on their website. Somasundaran also came up with a few suggestions on how to tide over the crisis.
“If you look at the economy as a whole, 65 per cent of the Government’s income comes from the services sectors like health, education, transport and tourism. Except for transport and tourism, the rest of the services sectors go without any tax. Since we don’t have a manufacturing bill, we don’t get much tax revenue. We hope the Goods and Services Taxes which will be implemented by April 2015 will improve the situation”, he added.
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