Our Correspondent
Kohima, June 15 (EMN): Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio on Monday informed that the estimated revenue from Covid-19 cess for the financial year 2020-21 is INR 37.25 crore. He added that the revenue generated from the cess for the month of April was INR 0.24 crore and INR 3.36 crore in May.
“The government took a considered decision to levy Covid-19 cess following a preliminary assessment of the levels of expenditure that would have to be incurred to fight the pandemic, especially considering the need to build up health infrastructure as well as for procurement of machinery and equipment, including protective items and medicines,” Rio said.
He reiterated this as there have been complaints and criticism against the state government’s move to impose Covid-19 cess of INR 5 per litre on diesel and INR 6 per litre on petrol and other motor spirits.
He maintained that the cost of meeting the actual needs have far exceeded what was initially estimated and the government has already spent INR 127.11 crore in fighting the Covid-19 pandemic so far. “This is not confined to the Health and Family Welfare department only,” he clarified.
The chief minister further maintained that the state government was aware of the negative impact the pandemic would have on the finances of the state. Therefore, it was decided to raise some extra resources from the petroleum sector as it is one of the few areas that remain outside the purview of Goods and Services Tax (GST) and within the domain of the state, he said.
“Nagaland is not the only state that has raised rates of tax on petroleum products. Other states have also done the same. We have only decided to name it Covid-19 cess to ensure that amounts collected are used entirely for the purpose of fighting the Covid-19 pandemic by making it more visible and traceable,” said the chief minister.
Rio also stated that the revenue (from Covid-19 cess) so far is a fraction of what the government has already spent without budgetary support.
“In fact, the coming months will continue to see significant expenditure in the transportation of returnees, their feeding expenses, purchase of medicines and equipment, cost of completion of the bio-safety level laboratories and purchase of equipment and consumables for these labs as well as investments that will require to be made in the district hospitals to facilitate them to deal with increasing number of positive cases,” he stated.
He added that besides medical-related exigencies, there are also other frontline agencies like the administration, police, fire services, NSDMA and others that are incurring heavy expenses in their daily activities connected to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Our society, we don’t pay tax. That’s why, when talk about tax, we are very allergic to it but I hope we will understand the ground reality,” he stated.
“Although the amounts being collected from the Covid-19 cess are nominal, in the extraordinary circumstances that we are faced with, we have to take measures to tap all possible resources so that we do not face a financial collapse,” he added.