Bengal is worst among the 5-highly indebted states: economist

KOLKATA: Sitting on a huge debt burden of close to Rs 2 lakh crore, West Bengal government's finances are the worst among five highly-indebted states in the country, a noted economist attached with the Indian Statistical Institute here has said.

"Revenue deficit of the state is the highest among the five highly-indebted states of UP, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat," Abhirup Sarkar, the economist, told PTI.

He said that for the year 2009-10, revenue deficit (difference between revenue earnings and revenue expenditure) of the state stood at a staggering Rs 17,940 crore as compared to Rs 7,123 crore for Maharashtra.

"This situation has been continuing for years," he said.

On the contrary, Uttar Pradesh, which is the most indebted state, is enjoying a revenue surplus.

Sarkar said that this was due to very poor collection of taxes and added that introduction of VAT did not bring buoyancy in revenue collection.

He said that the entire trade in the North-Eastern region was routed through West Bengal.

Sarkar said that there was corruption in collection of sales tax. "No official receipts were given for tax collected and I suspect that money might be diverted to party funds," Sarkar said.

"This is a substantial amount," he said.