Calcutta, June 11: The state government has decided to take up implementation of value added tax (VAT) with the Centre and will press for the power to impose service tax in the state.

Finance minister Asim Dasgupta will raise the issues at a meeting of the state finance ministers on tax reforms in Delhi next Friday. Union finance minister P. Chidambaram has agreed to attend.

Dasgupta, who returned last night after meetings with Chidambaram, said a change in law is required to enable states to impose service tax. “After making a constitutional amendment, the Centre has started levying service tax. Last year alone, they raised Rs 8,000 crore from this,” he said.

He will also take up at the June 18 meeting the exclusion of roads and bridges, drinking water, rural electrification and the social sector from the erstwhile funding scheme of the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF) under the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard).

“The NDA government had changed the scheme, leaving out a number of sectors, and renamed it Agriculture and Infrastructural Training Fund. We would like to have roads and bridges, and drinking water, rural electrification, rural health and school education included in the scheme,” said Dasgupta. Under the funding scheme, 90 per cent of the project cost is borne by the Centre and the rest by the state.

Sunflower discontent

Farmers, and not seeds, are responsible for the poor yield of the sunflower crop this year, the government said in an attempt to deflect anger over the failed crop and late distribution of seeds.

D. Konar, the director of agriculture, said the Surya-51 hybrid sunflower seeds did badly in areas where it was sown late, quoting the report of an inquiry ordered after farmers at Chandrakona in West Midnapore complained about poor yield and set their crops on fire.