Punjab Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal
The Finance Minister of Punjab, Manpreet Singh Badal on Friday announced the budget 2020-21. While presenting the annual budget, Badal made some major announced for the people of the state. He also announced payment of 6 per cent Dearness Allowance arrears to employees next month which would involve financial outgo of Rs 1,000 crore. The government employees have been seeking release of their pending DA. The per cent of DA arrears will be released within next week.
The pay commission report will be implemented and has been accounted for in the budget, he added. Badal presented a budget of Rs 1.54 lakh crore in the Punjab Assembly on Friday which focuses on agriculture for which the government has allocated Rs 12,526 crore which the education sector has got 13,092 crore.
Badal also announced allocation of Rs 2,000 crore including Rs 520 crore especially for waiving loans of landless farm workers under its flagship programme of crop loan waiver scheme. The government has already waived crop loans of all small and marginal farmers (up to 5 acres) who have loans of up to Rs 2 lakh.
Later, Badal also said the compensation to families of farmers who committed suicide would be ensured within 60 days. The allocation for free power subsidy for farmers has been kept at Rs 8,275 crore for 2020-21, he said.
In another important announcement, the minister said under the new assessment policy of the excise and taxation department, the number of pending and old VAT assessment cases would come down from 1.24 lakh to about 30,000.
In the budget, Badal proposed revenue receipts of Rs 88,004 crore and revenue expenditure of Rs 95,716 crore for 2020-21. He further said the revenue deficit for 2020-21 will be Rs 7,712 crore (1.20 per cent of GSDP) and the fiscal deficit will be Rs 18,828 crore (2.92 per cent of GSDP).
He also projected outstanding debt of Rs 2,48,236 crore for 2020-21 as against 2019-20 revised estimates of Rs 2,28,906 crore. While Chief Minister Amarinder Singh lauded the budget, the Opposition dubbed it "visionless and directionless".
Shiromani Akali Dal leader and former minister Bikram Singh Majithia described the budget as a "fraud" on the people of Punjab.
In a statement here, he said figures had been "fudged" to paint a rosy picture even as Punjab was suffering due to "inefficiency and mismanagement" of the state's finances by Badal.
Badal also proposed a capital expenditure of Rs 10,280 crore. He said the state would get higher share from the central taxes as has been proposed by the 15th Finance Commission. He said the state government proposes to set up two agriculture colleges at Gurdaspur and Balachaur.
(With inputs from agencies)
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