No fresh taxes in Himachal Budget

Seen by many as insipid, Himachal Pradesh’s Budget presented here today has proposed no fresh taxes in the hill state.

State Chief Minister P K Dhumal has reached out to all sections of the powerful state government staff by creating more rural jobs and doling out other benefits to the serving staff.

The total outlay for the the next financial year is Rs 16,708 crore.The estimated expenditure on salaries is Rs 5,881 crore. Estimated interest payments is Rs 2,150 crore. Loan repayments are expected to be over Rs 960 crore and pension expenditure is estimated at Rs 2,210 crore. The total revenue receipts is Rs 14,093 crore and the total revenue expenditure is Rs 14,042 crore leaving a surplus of around Rs 51 crore. Against an expenditure of every Rs 100, the state will have Rs 84.35 as total revenue receipts including transfers from the Centre. The gap of 15.65 will be met by borrowings.

Of every Rs 100 of the state revenue receipts Rs 28.67 will accrue from tax revenue, Rs 14.15 from non-tax revenues, Rs 14.62 from share in Central taxes and Rs 42.56 from Central grants. Of every Rs 100 spent, salaries will account for Rs 35.2, interest payments Rs 12.9, loan repayments Rs 5.75, pensions Rs 13.2 and remaining Rs 33 will be spent on developmental works and other activities. The budget has proposed a crop diversification promotion project of Rs 321 crore in the next financial year.The apple rejuvenation project will cover 1,000 hectares. Through the Asian Development Bank, Rs 428 crore is to be spent on developing tourism related infrastructure to boost tourism. The power sector gets an outlay of Rs 461 crore, a rise of Rs 107 crore over the current year. The plan is going to add 2,106 Mw to the installed capacity.

The Opposition, Congress, has criticised the Budget of the ruling BJP. Congress President Kaul Singh Thakur said, “The Budget is nothing but a jugglery of figures with no direction and vision”. “It has not touched the burning issues and has made no effort to remove the development imbalance. The budget is silent on the issue of providing new jobs,” Thakur said.

“We had demanded VAT be reduced on diesel, but this issue remains unaddressed this issue,” he said.