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Change would be needlessly disruptive to Maharashtra. The Maharashtra
government has expressed its reluctance to fall in line with the Centre‘s plan to change
the Indian financial year from April-March to January-December. It has communicated to
New Delhi that the change would be needlessly disruptive to the state of Maharashtra at
a time when fixing the economy, and implementing GST and new financial norms should
be the priority. Most countries around the world prefer the January-December fiscal
year, but India remains one of the few exceptions.
Over the years, many have argued that that the April-March fiscal year is a
colonial leftover that should be abandoned. The previous UPA government had begun
efforts to change the Indian fiscal year, and the NDA government has accelerated the
process. The NITI Aayog has stressed the urgent need to change the financial year, and in
July, the Centre appointed a committee under Chief Economic Advisor Shankar Acharya
to examine the feasibility and desirability of changing the Indian financial year. Some
states have agreed to the move.
Maharashtra remains an exception, senior officials in Maharashtra said. There are
major structural changes taking places in state‘s financial system, which are consuming a
lot of administrative time and manpower. In this scenario it may not practical to change
the financial year. In the view of the above, we request financial year not be changed, a
note to Prashant Goyal, joint secretary, Ministry of Finance, reads. The state has has cited
fluctuating weather phenomena, implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST)
and the merger of Plan and non-Plan expenditure as some of the reasons a new financial
year would burden the existing infrastructure.