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Dhumal presents a please-all budget

Photo: PTI

First budget: Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister P.K. Dhumal on his way to present the State budget at the Vidhan Sabha in Shimla on Friday.

SHIMLA: With a moderate to heavy increase in the outlay for various public welfare schemes and exposing “false promises” made by the previous government led by the Congress, Himachal Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal on Friday presented the State Budget for 2008-09 with a collective deficit of Rs.2637 crore.

The Chief Minister said his government had inherited a huge fiscal problem with an outstanding debt of Rs.22,930 crore from the previous government. Giving details, he said the total revenue receipts were estimated at Rs.9398 crore and the expenditure at Rs.9328 crore leaving a revenue deficit of Rs.70 crore. The capital receipts will be worth Rs.3137

crore and capital expenditure including loan repayments Rs.3214 crore. The fiscal deficit for the year was expected to be 5.4 per cent of the GSDP.

Mr. Dhumal said he had increased the net capital expenditure from Rs.1098 crore to Rs.1931 crore from this financial year which was an increase of 76 per cent.

He said the Annual Plan had been fixed at Rs.2400 crore which was 14.3 per cent higher than the previous year.

Accusing the previous government of announcing a food subsidy without any budgetary

provision, the Chief Minister said he had made a provision of Rs.90 crore for food subsidy for the next financial year.

He charged that the erstwhile Virbhadra Singh-led Congress government had made false claims of Rs.30,000 crore investments and massive job creations in the State but the actual investment was only Rs.3374 crore which is just 11 per cent of the total Congress claims.

Presenting the first budget of his new government, the Chief Minister announced a provision of Rs.197 crore for capital works of schools and colleges which would be 142 per cent more than the current provisions. He announced the coming up of new colleges in the private sector in Mandi, Una and Hamirpur. About 18,000 new posts of teachers would be filled up in the Education Department and 250 posts of doctors and 1,000 posts of nurses in the Health Department, he said.

Claiming to have given priority to the agriculture sector with an expenditure of 28 per cent of the total Plan size, the Chief Minister also announced an increase of Rs.2 per litre in the procurement price of milk.

The Chief Minister’s Gram Path Yojna which was discontinued by the Congress government has been re-introduced with a fresh provision of Rs.10 crore. He said an additional Rs.5 lakh would be given to all MLAs for this and their local area development fund would be increased to Rs.30 lakh from the present Rs.25 lakh.

Later addressing a press conference, Mr Dhumal said the interests of all sections of society had been kept in mind and relief had been given to all.

The opposition Congress has described it as a budget with jugglery of figures and a populist one keeping an eye on the coming Lok Sabha elections. The State unit of the CPI (M) has criticised the decrease in food subsidy with no emphasis on the public distribution system and called it a pro-privatisation budget.

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Dhumal presents a please-all budget

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