Six northeastern states are among the 14 states of the country for which the Centre has released post-devolution revenue deficit grants.

The development has come as a relief to the states which have been under financial stress as their revenue collection has gone down during the Covid-19-induced lockdown, forcing a state like Assam to announce a slew of austerity measures.

The amount of grant released for Assam is Rs 631 crore while Manipur has got Rs 235 crore, Meghalaya Rs 40 crore, Mizoram Rs 118 crore, Nagaland Rs 326 crore and Tripura Rs 269 crore.

The amount was released as grant-in-aid to cover deficit on post-devolution revenue account in 2020-21 as recommended by the 15th Finance Commission. Post-devolution revenue deficit grants is a mechanism by which the Finance Commission compensates any loss incurred by states.

The tweet by Himanta Biswa Sarma (Twitter)

Assam finance minister Himanta Biswa Sarma thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman for releasing the grant. “Revenue deficit grant to Assam at this stage will help us a lot. My deep gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi ji for this act of kindness,” Sarma tweeted.

Sarma said the state government needs Rs 3,600 crore a month only to pay the salaries of its employee. “Yet every drop counts. Bigger message from the release of the grant is that the Centre has honoured its commitment despite its decreasing revenue collection,” he said.

At various fora, Sarma has been categorically mentioning about the financial stress the state government is facing because of the lockdown.

In April this year, Assam’s revenue collection was only 20 per cent of that in April last year. The government is hoping that May’s collection will be at least 30 per cent of May 2019.

Mariani Congress MLA Rupjyoti Kurmi claimed on Tuesday that the future of the state’s economy was not bright with Sarma as the finance minister. He said Sarma should devote himself to the health portfolio and leave his two other portfolios, finance and education, to other ministers.