Chennai: Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday said claims that Tamil Nadu is not getting its due share from central tax revenue, and funds relative to its economic contribution are misleading.
Dismissing the allegation of the state govt, she said the state has benefitted from various Union govt schemes and sector-specific programmes such as the production-linked incentive.
Addressing an event here, she said “(Tamil Nadu govt’s) claims of the state not getting back fair contribution from (its) tax revenue are not true and I do not know how they arrived at these calculations. The state should also consider the benefits from various programmes of the Centre as we build roads, metros and ports,” she said.
She listed out the funds allocated for various projects, including building national highways, railways, metro rail, urban development and sectors with a significant presence in Tamil Nadu, such as textiles, footwear and leather, automobiles, maritime and energy.
Nirmala Sitharaman further said, “Tamil Nadu contributes 47% of the country’s footwear and leather exports and is home to GI-tagged leather produced by the tanneries in Trichy and Dindigul. Union govt’s scheme for the sector to facilitate employment for 22 lakh persons, generates a turnover of 4 lakh crore,” she said.
The finance minister said Tamil Nadu is the largest beneficiary of the PLI scheme for large-scale electronics manufacturing, with 7 out of the 27 approved units (25% of approved units) under PLI 2.0 located here. The govt recently announced the development of two major electronics manufacturing clusters, she added.
Tamil Nadu is home to the second largest number of manufacturing units under the auto PLI with 46 out of 82 approved applicants present in Tamil Nadu.
Highlighting various programmes, she said a lot needs to be done, but the state govt is trying to divert the attention of the people with language policy and delimitation.