How did Mamata Banerjee’s govt spend Rs 1.17 lakh crore central funds? Bengal Governor Bose wants to know

News Mania / Sohom Chatterjee / 4th October 2024

On October 1, Tuesday, WB Governor CV Ananda Bose wrote to CM Mamata Banerjee to ask for filing a report on the detailed expenditure of her government of the Rs. 1.17 lakh crore central allocated funds to the state in the 2023-24 financial year. A well-placed source in the Raj Bhavan said that Bose wrote the letter after he came to know that the state government did not table many Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) reports in the assembly.

Speaking to PTI, the source said, “The West Bengal government has been allotted Rs 1.17 lakh crore of central funds in financial year 2023-24. There are allegations of gross misuse of those funds… The fiscal situation of West Bengal is confronting multiple fiscal risks and public financial management issues.”

Via his letter, the Governor also underlined the issues of fiscal deficit which grew from about Rs 33,500 crore in 2018-19 to around Rs 49,000 crore in 2022-23 while the GSDP-debt ratio increased from 35.69 percent to over 37 percent during this period.

Bose also stated that a significant portion of public debt receipts was used by the government to pay off debt from 2021-22 to 2022-23.

“The West Bengal government has also benefitted hugely from successive Finance Commission awards. As per the Fifteenth Finance Commission Award, the state government has been recommended to receive a revenue deficit grant of Rs 40,115 crore from 2021-22 to 2024-25. This grant is as high as 13.62 per cent of the total revenue deficit grant recommended by the Fifteenth Finance Commission for the states.”

“In 2023-24, out of total revenue of Rs 2.13 lakh crore of West Bengal, central transfer alone was Rs 1.17 lakh crore constituting around 55 per cent of the total revenue of the state,” the source said.

There are reportedly six CAG audit reports that the WB government is yet to table in the assembly. Those are the Compliance Audit Report 2020-2021 (Report No. 2 of 2022), Audit Report 2020-2021 (Report No. 3 of 2022) 3), the State Finances Audit Report (SFAR) 2021-2022 (Report No. 1 of 2023), the Audit Report 2021-2022 (Report No. 2 of 2023), Performance & Compliance Audit Report 2021-2022 (Report No. 1 of 2024) and the State Finances Audit Report (SFAR) 2022-2023 (Report No. 2 of 2024), the source added.

Bose referred to the provisions in Article 151 of the Indian Constitution in the letter which audit reports of CAG, relating to the accounts of a state shall be submitted to the governor, who shall cause them to be laid before the assembly.

The rule also suggested that the state government needed to initiate action so that the CAG reports were tabled in the assembly, Bose mentioned.

The Governor also urged the state government to be fiscally prudent and transparent and submit the reports before the cabinet to issue a White Paper on the fiscal situation in the state.