The Centre must keep the faith of Parliament, States and the people, and stop misusing cess
The latest audit of the Union Government’s accounts tabled in Parliament this week reveals that the Finance Ministry quietly retained over 40% of all cess collections in 2018-19 in the Consolidated Fund of India (CFI). As many as 35 different cesses, levies and charges yielded ₹2.75-lakh crore in the year, but just around ₹1.64-lakh crore was remitted to the specific reserve funds for which these cesses were levied. This not only helped understate India’s revenue and fiscal deficit numbers but also meant that the purposes for which Parliament approved such cesses — be it health, education or infrastructure development — were not met. The CAG of India has, not for the first time, urged the Finance Ministry to take immediate corrective action. Over 10 years, not a paisa of the…