TN Assembly readopts Fiscal Responsibility Amendment Bill 2024 returned by Guv

Chennai, Oct 17 (PTI) The state assembly on Friday readopted the Tamil Nadu Fiscal Responsibility (Amendment) Bill, 2024, returned by Governor R N Ravi for reconsideration.

The Bill, originally passed by the legislative Assembly on February 22, 2024, was moved by state Finance Minister Thangam Thennarasu for the consideration of the House, and later passed by voice vote.

The DMK and its allies, the Congress, and the Left Parties said the Governor returning the Bill amounted to undermining the authority of the Legislative Assembly.

Reading out the letter from R N Ravi dated August 25, stating the reasons for returning the Bill, Speaker M Appavu said the Governor had raised certain issues relating to the proposed amendment, which sought to achieve zero revenue deficit by 2026-27 and to reduce the fiscal deficit to three per cent of Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) by March 31, 2026.

"It aims to go beyond the period specified by the fifteenth finance commission, which set the target for 2021-22 to 2025-26. With the next assembly election approaching in less than a year from now, the proposed Bill directly operates beyond the tenure of the present government and into the tenure of the next government," the Governor said in the letter, referring to the extension of timelines.

Further, such laws were meant to be binding, and extensions were usually made in extraordinary situations like natural disasters and economic crisis. Such repeated extensions will dilute the statutory amendments of fiscal discipline. It undermines the spirit of coordinated fiscal discipline envisaged between the union and the state, besides setting a precedence for future administration and strain future budgets, the Governor had stated in the letter.

"There has been a delay of 18 months in acting on the Bill. The Governor should have followed the principle of 'as soon as possible' or 'as early as possible'. His reasons are unacceptable. If you support, we can resubmit the Bill to the Governor for assent," Thennarasu earlier appealed to the members.

The Tamil Nadu Siddha Medical University Bill, 2025, TN Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (Amendment) Bill, 2025, and the TN Private Colleges (Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2025, were among the 16 Bills that were totally passed in the Assembly on the concluding day of the brief Assembly session, which commenced on October 14.

Later, the Speaker adjourned the Assembly sine die. PTI JSP JSP ROH