Centre must act at once on Cauvery: Tamil Nadu CM

Chennai: Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami has demanded that the Centre immediately operationalise Cauvery Water Management Authority and the Cauvery Water Regulation Committee for effective implementation of the final order of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal as modified by Supreme Court. Also, he suggested that States be allowed to levy and appropriate all indirect taxes to enhance their ‘limited’ resources while the Union Government could retain the direct tax revenues.

Speaking at the fourth governing council meeting of NITI Aayog held at New Delhi on Sunday he said Tamil Nadu is entirely dependent on water from inter-state rivers, in particular, the Cauvery and hence the need to operationalise the CMA and CWRC.

“The Government of India should take lead in inter-linking of rivers by nationalisation of all the inter-state rivers which alone offers the promise of creating a framework that would allow optimal utilisation of water resources amongst States. My revered leader, the late Puratchi Thalaivi Amma, had repeatedly urged the Government of India to implement the interlinking of the Mahanadhi-Godavari-Krishna-Pennar-Palar-Cauvery-Vaigai-Gundar rivers and also to divert the surplus waters of the west flowing Pamba and Achankovil Rivers to Vaippar in Tamil Nadu,” he said.

“No one in the Government of India other than Prime Minister Narendra Modi would perhaps understand this better. In the post-GST era, flexibility of States to augment their own resources and mobilise more is very limited. It is time we think of a new model of resource sharing to effectively deal with the present development challenges,” he said. As is being practised in the developed countries, Mr. Palaniswami suggested permitting the States to levy and appropriate all indirect taxes while the Union Government could retain the direct tax revenues.

“Alternatively, the power of collection and appropriation of personal income tax can be vested with the States as this would take care of growing needs of the States to implement development programmes. In this way, the present complicated process of devolution of resources can be simplified,”he remarked.

Using Census data for recommendation is unfair, penalises TN:
Contending that mandating the 15th Finance Commission to use population data of 2011 Census for its recommendations is “unfair and penalises” States like Tamil Nadu for being progressive, Mr. Palaniswami sought the Terms of Reference to be revised. “I also request that para 7 (iii) and para 7 (viii) in the ToR of the 15th Finance Commission be revised as they would propel the Finance Commission into adopting a subjective and out-of context approach while working out the principles of resource sharing,” he urged.

Also, drawing PM's attention to the “unfair treatment meted out” to Tamil Nadu by successive Finance Commissions, he said while the 14th Finance Commission, increased the overall devolution of taxes to States from 32 percent to 42 percent, it reduced inter-se share of Tamil Nadu in the divisible pool from 4.969 per cent to 4.023 per cent. As a result, Tamil Nadu suffered an annual resource loss of Rs 6,000 crore.

“The 15th Finance Commission would pain us further, unless some Terms of Reference (ToR) are corrected. Some of them are not in line with the principles of federalism enshrined in our Constitution and have to be reconsidered,” he said and added that the Constitution (Forty-Second Amendment) Act, 1976 imposed a freeze on the population figure for readjustment at the 1971 census, as being the basis for all delimitation until after 2001 Census. This was extended by Constitution (Eighty-Fourth Amendment) Act, 2011 till 2026 so as to ensure that progressive States which have brought their population under control are not penalised for proactive action, he said.