Wrong dose

 Bowing down to intense pressure from scores of organisations including student bodies, the state government decided to revoke the additional tax under COVID-19 cess on all petroleum products which is expected to follow an official announcement to be effective from September 25,2020. As per the government’s admission, the COVID-19 cess which came into effect on April 28,2020,has till August 31, yielded a total of Rs.13.14 crore. The government, while announcing the cabinet decision on revoking the COVID-19 cess also disclosed, that a total of Rs.143.64 crore was spent by the state for COVID-19. This amount included Rs.27.84 cr from the government of India as fund for COVID-19; Rs.115.80 cr from the state’s own resources and Rs.13.14 cr through COVID-19 cess. Along with the announcement, the state government also highlighted its financial statement which showed that it will end up with a deficit of Rs.2358.81cr at the close of the current financial year(2020-21). It may be recalled that while presenting his budget in February this year for 2019-20, the chief minister, who holds the finance portfolio disclosed that the deficit for the period was Rs.2234.85 cr. When the state government announced the COVID-19 cess it was at the rate of Rs.5 per litre of diesel and Rs.6 per litre of petrol. Following Nagaland, Assam also imposed a surcharge of Rs.5 on petroleum products while Meghalaya added an additional 2% on fuel (excluding motor spirit used as fuel for aircraft, diesel oil and other internal combustion oil). According to reports both Assam and Meghalaya did not mention these hikes for use in COVID-19 measures and therefore, leaving space for their continuation. The outcry against the COVID-19 cess in Nagaland was accentuated by the economic woes in general although the cess was seen as the villain of the piece. Probably, the mood of the public was also spurred by serious allegations of irregularities in the way the government had used huge amount of money for “emergency” purchases and in the process, throwing caution and norms to the wind. Two PILs are pending in the Gauhati High Court Kohima Bench against the department of health and welfare over purchases of various medical and non-medical items. In addition, the in initial inadequacies with regard to handling measures against COVID-19 such as returnees, quarantine facilities and lack of proper medical facilities had probably helped public made up their minds. It is also very likely that the negativity would have been much lessened, had the government been more transparent with regard to questions related with all these issues. To be fair to the government, leaving aside the allegations on purchases; it was not easy to handle COVID-19 since even the Centre or for that matter, developed countries were also severely tested for a pandemic that nobody had expected or were prepared to face. The revocation of the COVID-19 cess probably won’t make much impact on the already poor financial health of the state though it will certainly have a significant impact on transportation charges. At a time when people’s economy has been devastated by the lockdown, any further burden on the public cannot but only worsen the situation and the cess was like a treatment that was worse than the disease.