Nishank may present election-driven budget

With the Assembly elections in Uttarakhand only 10 to 11 months away, Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank would present in the state Assembly, tomorrow evening, the last Budget of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government for the year 2011-12.

Official sources said the chief minister is expected to make a string of populous announcements in an attempt to garner more political support in the hill state where the ruling BJP would be facing the anti-incumbency factor in the elections due in February next year.

But the big worry before Nishank will be the burgeoning Non-Plan and heavy expenditure on the social sector. With the Centre advising states to keep the fiscal deficit at 3.5 of the Gross State Domestic Product and present a revenue surplus budget, the task of presenting a balance budget becomes more difficult, financial experts said.

Another worry before the Chief Minister, who holds the finance portfolio, will be that a host of announcements made in the last Budget speech for the year 2010-11 have failed to see the light of the day.

In the last Budget, Nishank had announced that hydel projects up to 25 Mw with a total capacity of 2,000 Mw would be allocated in the second phase of the 2008 policy for the power sector. But instead, the government was forced to cancel all the 56 hydel projects of the first phase last year. The construction work of the multi-purpose 300-Mw Lakhwar and 600-Mw Kishau hydel projects, which were part of the Budget speech, have not yet begun.

Similarly, a host of infrastructure projects like Naini Saini airport in Pithoragarh district and likewise projects in tourism sector have not made any headway.