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Deficit budget presented in Assembly

The BJP-ruled State to introduce VAT from April this year

RAIPUR: The BJP government in Chhattisgarh on Saturday tabled a Rs 223.22 crore deficit budget in the State Assembly.

Moving his third budget, Finance Minister Amar Agrawal said the total receipt for the fiscal 2006-2007 is estimated at Rs 12,223.76 crore against the estimated expenditure of Rs 12,309.80 crore.

Agrawal said after including Rs 137.18 crore as the deficit of 2005-2006 fiscal after its revised estimate, the total budgetary deficit has gone up to Rs 223.22 crore.

The gross fiscal deficit has gone upto Rs 1438.75 crore, which is estimated to be three per cent of the gross state domestic product, he said.

Meanwhile, the Finance Mnister said from next fiscal an `outcome' budget will be introduced in certain sectors.

Out of the total estimated expenditure of Rs 12,309.80 crore, Rs 6,739.81 crore has been earmarked for the non-planned sector while Rs 5,569.99 would be given for planned sector, he said adding the total expenditure is estimated to be Rs 1,569.60 crore more from the revised estimate of 2005-2006.

The Chhattisgarh government also announced to switch over to Value Added Tax (VAT) regime from April 1 and to exempt many items from VAT in the budget for 2006-07,

``Introduction of VAT regime would help facilitate a uniform tax structure throughout the country'', Mr Agrawal said to the House.

``The state was ready to switch over to VAT regime much earlier but it could not be introduced as the policy for compensating the states for the revenue loss on account of Central Sales Tax was not clear. We are hopeful that the centre would compensate for the losses on this account'', he added.

Mr Agrawal announced to exempt many items, including agarbatti, coconut, wheat flour, kosa yarn and cocoon of all types, from VAT and to keep grocery items in four per cent VAT. Similarly fly ash bricks have been exempted from VAT, he added.

VAT rate on all electrical wires and cables would be brought down to four per cent from 12.5 per cent in view of the extension of electrical infrastructure and rural electrification programme being carried out in the state, he added.

Entry tax

Mr Agrawal also proposed to bring down entry tax on sugar to 0.25 per cent from one per cent and to increase entry tax on pan masala from one per cent to 10 per cent.

It is also proposed to abolish entry tax on re-rolled products to keep re-rolling mills competitive and to impose entry tax on HDPE and PP bags imported from other states to make local industries more competitive. In order to provide relief to salaried class, Mr Agrawal proposed to increase the exemption limit of professional tax from Rs 2 lakh to Rs 2.5 lakh, which would result in a revenue loss of Rs five crore to the state exchequer. PTI & UNI

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Deficit budget presented in Assembly

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