Puducherry, Nov 14 (PTI) Puducherry Chief Minister N Rangasamy on Sunday made out a strong case for the Centre to earmark at least Rs 1,500 crore as additional central assistance to the territorial government in next year's budget.

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Saying that the additional central assistance was required, Rangasamy, who heads the AINRC-BJP coalition government here, pointed out that it was needed "to compensate the loss of revenue in implementation of GST and also reduction of GST on petroleum products."

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He was speaking at the 29th Southern Zonal council conference held in Tirupati under the chairmanship of Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

"The Centre should earmark at least Rs 1,500 crore as additional Central assistance to the territorial government in the next year`s budget," Rangasamy said, according to an official release here.

The chief minister said the Central assistance to the annual budget of the union territory from the Home Ministry "is inadequate."

"For example in the current budget only 1.57 per cent increase was allowed. We need at least Rs 1,500 crore in next year's budget to compensate the loss of revenue in implementation of GST and reduction of GST on petroleum products," the Chief Minister said.

Reiterating the demand for statehood to Puducherry, he said, "it is a long pending issue as we are unable to exercise any power for creating employment potential by inviting more industries to Puducherry and also create infrastructure facilities for tourism."

Referring to the need for expansion of the Puducherry airport, the Chief Minister said, "expansion of the airport requires acquisition of land to the extent of 216 acres in Tamil Nadu and 54 acres in Puducherry for which approximately Rs 225 crores is necessary."

Rangasamy also batted for construction of a new Assembly complex as the present building was old and inadequate and said the territorial government had made a proposal for the same.

"As the present Assembly building is totally inadequate and also very old, the territorial government has proposed to construct a new Assembly complex including a Secretariat for which approximately Rs 300 crore grant is essential," he added.

The Chief Minister said the Puducherry government had sought Rs 500 crore as special assistance towards Covid related expenditure and also to enhance the existing facilities in hospitals.

Highlighting the need for assistance to develop different cooperative organisations, he said "unfortunately the previous government totally neglected various activities in the cooperative sector and most of the organisations have become sick."

Rangasamy said to revive the Puducherry Co-operative Sugar mill, the cooperative spinning mill and other cooperative organisations involved in various businesses which will directly help the farmers and also consumers, an amount of Rs 500 crore as special assistance was required.

Lt Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan and Chief Secretary to Puducherry government Ashwani Kumar also participated in the conference.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)