‘Maha can save ₹2,000 crore if Centre slashes interest rate on existing loans’
State finance minister Sudhir Mungantiwar on Sunday requested Union finance minister Arun Jaitley, who was in the city to discuss issues related to the Good and Services Tax (GST) with representatives of petroleum and liquor manufacturing industries, to reduce interest rates by 2.75%...
With the state debt set to cross Rs4 lakh crore mark, the Maharashtra government has requested the centre help to reduce the interest rate on the loans it had taken from the latter in the past. The move is expected to help the state save more than Rs2,000 crore every year.
State finance minister Sudhir Mungantiwar on Sunday requested Union finance minister Arun Jaitley, who was in the city to discuss issues related to the Good and Services Tax (GST) with representatives of petroleum and liquor manufacturing industries, to reduce interest rates by 2.75%.
“We have requested the finance minister to slash the interest rate on the loans provided to us by the centre in the past. The erstwhile Congress-NCP government had taken loans of Rs75,000 crore at the interest rate of 9.5%. We have now asked it to bring down to the prevalent rates — 6.75%. If this gets approved, the government will save Rs2,062 crore every year,” Mungantiwar told HT.
He said that Jaitley has agreed to consider the demand, as it will help improve the financial health of the state.
The debt of the state is slated to cross Rs4 lakh crore in this fiscal and the state is likely to pay around Rs31,027 crore as interest for the loans in 2017.
Mungantiwar also demanded deadline for onion export to be extended so that its falling prices can be controlled. “We have requested to extend the deadline for export of onion by three months. The finance minister has agreed to facilitate us for the same,” he said.
Prices of onion have dropped substantially, creating more issues for the farmers as they are not getting appropriate price for their produce.
Meanwhile, while speaking to the representatives of various manufacturing industries, Jaitely said they need not worry about the GST roll out as tax rates of the commodities have been placed in the slab nearest to the existing tax rates. The GST has five slabs for tax rates starting from 0 to 5, 12, 18 and 28%.
He is also learnt to have assured to consider their demand to reconsider inclusion of raw materials required for liquor and petroleum products in the GST when both the above commodities are kept out of the ambit of the GST.
Also read: Four bills for GST roll out will be introduced next week