Chief minister Hemant Soren on Thursday attacked the union government, accusing it of ‘continuously’ and ‘blatantly’ trying to destabilize the state’s fiscal health.

The CM was reacting to the union power ministry’s decision to invoke TPA (tripartite agreement clause) against Jharkhand for auto debiting of funds from the latter’s consolidated account in Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to clear outstanding dues of the Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC).

On October 12, the power ministry sent a letter to RBI to auto-debit Rs 1417.50 crore to its own coffers from Jharkhand’s account as the first quarterly installment towards DVC’s dues. It has only now forwarded a note to the state government informing of the decision. The public sector undertaking (PSU) has claimed dues amounting to Rs 5,608.32 crore, for the period of March 31, 2015 to August 23, 2017 for supplying power to about seven districts under its command areas.

Hemant, in a formal statement to the media, said, “It's a veiled conspiracy by the Union government to provoke and trap the state government to increase its borrowing from markets and other instruments in these times of economic instability and fiscal difficulties being faced by the state. The previous Raghubar Das-led BJP government in Jharkhand, through a tripartite agreement (TPA) signed in 2017, laid the foundation stone towards destroying the basic edifice of cooperative federalism.”

Accusing the centre of double standards, he said, “While the Union government is reluctant to pay the long-standing GST compensation dues to the states citing covid-19 pandemic and its subsequent impact on revenues, it is hell-bent on auto deduction of money from state coffers. By doing so, it is proving that cooperative federalism seems to be yet another failed slogan of the central government.”

After the centre’s notice to Jharkhand seeking dues last month, principal secretary of the state energy department Avinash Kumar on September 23 had written to the union power ministry contesting the total dues amount. He also pleaded that arbitrarily resorting to auto-deduction from their RBI account will further push the state into financial darkness.

Kumar’s letter, a copy of which was released to the media tonight, stated that after a meeting held with DVC, and state owned JBVNL, it was agreed on re-calculating the pending dues on several realistic parameters for which a formal agreement was also signed.

“After re-assessment, the pending dues were reworked to Rs 3,919.04 crores against Rs 5,608.32 crores earlier claimed by DVC. DVC, on the other hand, owes Rs 360.36 crores to Jharkhand in lieu of mining. It was decided to adjust this amount from the total dues for which a cabinet note was also prepared. The cabinet meeting, however, couldn’t happen due to the unprecedented Covid-19 lockdown. Moreover, after the Centre announced to provide Rs 90,000 crore liquidity to all discoms under its Atmanirbhar Bharat package, JBVNL decided to borrow Rs 1841 crores under this scheme to clear the dues. A cabinet note for this is readied and is under consideration,” Kumar wrote.