Tamil Nadu Finance Minister Palanivel Thiaga Rajan met Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in New Delhi on Saturday to discuss, among other issues, the upcoming GST Council meeting in Madurai and funding aspects related to the second phase of the Chennai Metro Rail project.

He told reporters: “We sought faster clearance from the Union government for the loan agreement with JICA and others for the Chennai Metro Rail project. They had asked for some details, which we have provided, and we have been assured of faster clearances. The State has made its share of investment in the project," he said. 

Mr. Thiaga Rajan said the State had submitted details for the release of funds under the Union government’s interest-free loan scheme for States, and it was not released as they had sought more details, which were furnished.

The Union government has released ₹3,500 crore to Tamil Nadu under the interest-free loan scheme on Friday, he said. Of the amount, ₹185 crore is for the Optic Fibre Cable project and ₹3,265 crore is for the State highways project, he said.

Mr. Thiaga Rajan said the GST council meeting has been delayed as a report from the Group of Ministers on issues related to gaming and the GST Appellate Tribunal was yet to come.

“I insisted that we can go ahead with the GST council meeting without these topics for the meeting in Madurai.”

“We have also asked for the provision of Income Tax and Employees Provident Fund Organisation data to Tamil Nadu, which would be helpful for our data purity project to better target schemes. The Income Tax data has been provided by Karnataka. We were assured that it would be provided soon,” he said.

The Tamil Nadu government also sought allocation for setting up the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER) in Madurai, he said. “An announcement was made, but there was no allocation. They said that the NIPER scheme has been stopped. We have asked for its revival and an allocation along with a testing facility,” he said.