BJP State Spokesperson Prof. Virender Gupta while referring the data appeared in a daily newspaper with regard to the tax collection from Jammu province and Kashmir province said that it is unreasonable that Jammu region that is contributing 75 per cent to the state exchequer is being discriminated in the allocation of development funds in all sectors vis-a-vis Kashmir Valley.
The data reveals that in the year 2014 Jammu contributed 3592.15 crore of rupees (75.4%) as tax collection in the state exchequer out of total tax collected 4760.77 crore, whereas the contribution of the valley was merely 1168.62 which stands as (24.5%).
Similarly, in the year 2015-16 the contribution of Jammu was 4126.89 crore i.e. 74.8% of the total amount of 5515.96 crore against merely 25.2% (Rs. 1389.07 crore) input in the state exchequer. In the last year of 2016-17 again put in Rs. 2690 (71.86%) and the Valley contribution was 1054.36 i.e. 28.14% in the state exchequer when the total amount deposited in this year was 3744.93 crore.
Even in the matter of property tax collected Jammu province contribution stands far high vis-à-vis the Kashmir province. In 2015-16 the total amount gathered as property tax was Rs. 976.90 crore, out of which Jammu contributed Rs. 749.40 crore (76.7%) whereas, the amount paid by the Kashmir province was Rs. 227.41 crore, which is 23.3%. Again in 2016-17 the amount collected from the Kashmir province was merely Rs. 4.16 crore, i.e. 32.7% of the total Rs. 12.74 crore whereas the contribution from the Jammu province was Rs. 8.58 crore (67.3%).
Prof. Virender Gupta further said that “it is true that in Jammu province contribution towards the state exchequer has also some component of Kashmir Valley that is collected at Lakhanpur but overall the Jammu province contribution lies at much higher level vis-a-vis the Valley” and added that there is no justification in discriminating Jammu in the allocation of funds when the Union government sanctions funds as per the state contribution to the central pool of taxes.
