Nagaland's plea to Centre to allow debt-swap scheme

KOHIMA: With a view to tide over the Rs 365 crore fiscal deficit and ease burden of a Rs 2,300 crore debt, the Nagaland government has requested Centre to allow the state avail the debt-swap scheme.
Finance Minister K Therie said the scheme will allow the state to get a loan of Rs 2,300 crore from the World Bank.
"We are paying 13 per cent interest on the current burden, which can come down to six or seven per cent with the loan", he told reporters here.
This year''s debt servicing for the state was to the tune of Rs 342 crore, he said.
On last week''s Delhi visit by Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio and his cabinet colleagues in which they apprised Prime Minister A B Vajpayee and Deputy Prime Minister LK Advani on the financial situation of Nagaland, Therie said "the indications were positive".
However, the Finance Minister said, the Centre had also asked the state to observe fiscal discipline. "Imposing value-added tax was sort of a condition put forward by the Centre", he said.
The tax may be introduced at the budget session of assembly next week, Therie said. The minister was not confident whether it would be passed by the house, but "we may have to introduce it".