Allocation to Congress ruled states higher in NDA regime: FM

New Delhi, Jun 9: Rebutting charge of discrimination against nine Congress ruled states, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today said they have been allocated more funds under NDA compared to the UPA rule and will also get higher share in tax devolution over the next five years.

Referring to the meeting of Chief Ministers of these states, Jaitley listed details to buttress the point that there was no discrimination against the Opposition ruled states.

"The Congress Party today had a meeting of the Chief Ministers of the nine Congress ruled States. The Party leadership raised an issue that Congress ruled States have been discriminated against by the Centre. Facts, however, speak otherwise," he said in a tweet.

Giving a comparison of the allocation of funds in 2013-14 (the last full fiscal of UPA government) and 2015-16 (the first full fiscal of NDA), Jaitley said the allocation to nine states, including Karnataka and Kerala, increased to Rs 1,47,781 crore from Rs 82,487 crore.

This includes the tax devolution as recommended by the Finance Commission, grants and fund allocation for Centrally Sponsored Schemes, he said.

Also the cumulative tax devolution to the nine states will jump 3-fold to Rs 5,98,906 crore during 2015-20 after the NDA government implemented the recommendation of the 14th Finance Commission, he added.

Their share in the tax devolution between 2010-15 was Rs 1,94,618 crore. Besides Kerala and Karnataka, the Congress ruled states are Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Uttarakhand.

Jaitley said budgeted fund allocation to Karnataka for 2015-16 is Rs 35,468 crore, higher than Rs 25,093 crore received in 2013-14. Allocation to Assam also increased to Rs 30,075 crore for 2015-16, from Rs 19,257 crore in 2013-14.

PTI