CHANDIGARH: The Haryana Finance Minister, Birender Singh, presented his maiden tax- free budget for the year 2005-06 in the Vidhan Sabha on the opening day of the Budget Session here on Thursday.

Mr. Singh said that the budget proposals for 2005-06 indicated that the year was likely to open with a deficit of Rs. 242.36 crores and close with a deficit of Rs. 294.03 crores with the year's account deficit pegged at Rs. 51.67 crores as per the books of the Reserve Bank of India. He pointed out that the gradual increase in the share of services sector was a healthy sign for the State economy.

While highlighting the priorities of the State Government, he disclosed that the norms for crop damage had been enhanced by 50 per cent for wheat and by 25 per cent for other crops. Further, floor price of land compensation had been fixed at Rs. 15 lakhs per acre in Gurgaon, Rs. 12.50 lakhs in the rest of NCR and Rs. 5 lakhs in other areas of the State.

A Rajiv Gandhi Education City would be set up to serve as a "Centre of Excellence" for providing high quality education. It is also proposed to open one model school in each district. A new scheme -- Rajiv Gandhi Scholarship for excellence in education --has been introduced to attract brilliant students in Government schools.

Mr.Singh disclosed that a campaign for gender awareness was being launched and various incentive-based schemes would be introduced for gender sensitisation to give due place to the girl child in the society and also to address the problem of skewed sex ratio. All employment generation schemes would be re-oriented to provide wage and self- employment avenues in agriculture, industry and services sector.

An Overseas Employment Bureau would be set up to facilitate placements. He also assured to rationalise the eligibility criteria of unemployment allowance and to suitably enhance the amount of allowance to provide some real help to the needy.

Monthly retainership allowance for blind caners had been enhanced from Rs. 1,500 to Rs. 2,000 and pension for handicapped persons from Rs. 300 to Rs. 600.

For girls from Scheduled Castes families living below poverty line, the `shagun' amount had been enhanced to Rs. 15,000 from Rs. 5,100 under the Indira Gandhi Priyadarshani Vivah Shagun Yojana. The Swatantrata Senani Samman Pension had also been increased from Rs. 1,400 to Rs. 3,500.

Under the Urban Renewal Mission, constituted by the Central Government, special assistance of Rs. 47.30 crores would be provided to urban local bodies in the State during the current year for strengthening urban infrastructure. Apart from Faridabad, two more cities- Ambala and Rohtak- would be included under this programme.

He reiterated that the New Industrial Policy of the State would provide balanced industrial growth with special focus on backward areas and promote public- private participation in infrastructure projects.

Mr. Birender Singh further disclosed that to bring transparency, accountability and stability in fiscal operations, a Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Bill was being introduced in the current Vidhan Sabha session. Speaking on resource raising measures, he said that a committee had been constituted under the chairmanship of Chief Minister, Bhupinder Singh Hooda. He made it very clear that the present Government was more interested in the output than only the outlays. In this regard, the Government had introduced Performance Audit and proposed to appoint external agency to quantify the performance of engineering departments.

He announced a State plan outlay of Rs. 3,000 crores, which would be a record increase of 34 per cent over the revised plan of Rs. 2,236.72 crores of the previous year. The State plan strategy focuses on development of social and economic infrastructure and an investment of Rs.1,352.96 crores, constituting 45.10 per cent of the plan outlay, has been kept for social services sector.

Priority had also been accorded to the power, irrigation, roads and transport sectors for which an outlay of Rs. 1,180.20 crores had been earmarked constituting 39.34 per cent of the plan outlays.

Mr. Singh said the Government would generate substantial surpluses on revenue account which would be utilised in coming years for financing plan outlays. The Haryana Budget 2005-06 and Economic Survey 2004-05 are available on website www.haryana.nic.in

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