Calcutta, Feb. 27: Former finance minister Asim Dasgupta today linked the fall in the state's revenue collection to lack of industrial initiative by the Mamata Banerjee government, describing it as 'a cause for concern'.

The budget tabled by Amit Mitra in the Assembly today showed a drop of Rs 5,351 crore in tax revenue collection.

Addressing a news conference at Alimuddin Street this evening, Dasgupta said: 'When there is a fall in tax revenues, it is indicative of the sorry state of affairs on the industrial front. It means that industry, a major source of revenue earning, is not happening in the state. A fall in collection of more than Rs 5,000 crore is a cause for concern for Bengal.''

The former minister, however, conceded that the drastic fall in the prices of petrol and diesel had affected revenue earnings of the state to some extent.

'It's true that there has been some effect on the revenue earnings because of the drop in oil prices. But that was for only four months and not the whole year,'' Dasgupta said.

He questioned Trinamul's claim that the state had attracted investments worth Rs 80,000 crore since it came to power in 2011.

'If so much investments happened, we need to know the monetary involvement of projects that have been already implemented and those under implementation. Why is the government not giving separate figures for the two? It's surprising,'' Dasgupta, who was the finance minister for 24 years in the Left Front government, said.

Referring to chief minister Mamata Banerjee's oft-repeated allegation regarding the huge public debt she inherited from the Left regime, Dasgupta said most of the debt was because of small savings loans the Centre had offered at high rates of interest.

'If the Centre charged a high interest on loans that they had given to the state government from deposits in post offices (known as small savings loans), how can we be blamed? Moreover, Trinamul had been part of the Union government led by the Congress and the BJP. She will have to take responsibility for the big debt that accumulated during the Left rule,'' Dasgupta said.

The leader of the Opposition, Surjya Kanta Mishra, describing the budget as 'baseless statistics'. Congress leader Manas Bhuniya termed it 'mysterious'.