Nagaland unveils Rs 225-crore surplus budget

Without proposing any new taxes, Nagaland Chief Minister T R Zeliang today presented a Rs 225 crore surplus budget for 2016-17.
Presenting the budget in the ongoing session of the state Assembly, Zeliang, who also holds the Finance portfolio, estimated the gross receipts for the financial year at Rs 13,870.98 crore and gross expenditure at Rs 13,645.98 crore.
He said with the negative opening balance of Rs 1,419.35 crore, 2016-17 fiscal was estimated to close with a negative balance of Rs 1,194.35 crore.
On the internal revenue collection during the current year, the Chief Minister said the target has been put at Rs 665.06 crore, an increase of 12.15 per cent from last year.

He said because of improvements made in some sectors, this figure has now increased by Rs 17.96 crore to Rs 683.02 crore in the Revised Estimates for 2015-16, which was an improvement of 15.18 per cent.
For the 2016-17 fiscal, the internal revenue collection was being estimated at Rs 776.90 crore, which was an increase of 16.82 per cent from 2015-16, he said.

"This is the first time in the recent history of our
state where the deficit could be reduced to this extent during a single financial year," he said.
In order to bring down the overhead expenditures, the CM stated departments having excess employees would not be allowed to recruit new employees even against resultant vacancies as was done in the case of School Education Department.

Zeliang said the state government would implement rationalisation of man power management, relocating employees from departments which have surplus employees to departments that require more manpower.
Maintaining that the government spent about Rs 85 crore annually for payment of leave encashment to retired employees, he said it was observed that most of the retired employees get full benefits of 300 days of leave encashment although many may not be regular in their duties.
This, he said, has a huge financial impact on the state government and therefore, the government would be examining the possibilities of either reducing the entitled number of days for leave encashment, or the option of allowing employees to avail the entitled leave before retirement.

Zeliang said the annual Plan outlay for 2016-17 has been projected at Rs 3,924.47 crore, adding the outlay was 8.35 per cent higher than last year.