CPI(M) State secretary Pinarayi Vijayan has called upon the people to boycott the additional taxes announced by the State government as part of its resource mobilisation initiatives.
Future course
Mr. Vijayan told reporters here on Thursday that the Left Democratic Front would meet soon to chart out a course of action against the government decision to impose an additional burden of Rs.3,000 crore on the people without discussing it in the Assembly.
The people should not pay the additional taxes, be it the enhanced water tariff, land tax or the fee proposed for issuing various certificates.
The burden of the government inefficiency for collecting taxes should not be passed on to the public.
Instead of hiking the tariff, the government should have taken the lead to collect arrears due from major consumers and made the Kerala Water Authority profitable, he said.
Fiscal collapse
Mr. Vijayan said the State was in for a fiscal collapse. The government should bring out a white paper on the financial position and clarify where it erred on managing its finances.
The revenue deficit had been growing progressively over the past three years and would reach an all-time record of Rs.15,000 crore by year end.
Liquor policy
The contention that the crisis was the outcome of the new liquor policy was baseless.
For, the revenue in this score from April to August last year was only Rs.600 crore, which rose to Rs.660 crore in the corresponding period this year.
Hence, that could not be deemed as the reason for the crisis, he said.
Excessive spending was the main reason for the crisis. Though Finance Minister K.M. Mani was responsible for messing up the situation, the entire government could not escape its onus on the issue, the CPI(M) State secretarysaid.
