Rs 285 crore deficit budget tabled in Arunachal Assembly

Arunachal Pradesh finance minister Chowna Mein today presented a Rs 285 crore deficit budget for the 2017-18 fiscal with major thrust on women empowerment, infrastructure development and law and order.
Tabling the budget in the state Assembly, Mein said "the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) was estimated to be Rs 21,414 crore in 2016-17. The share of central taxes have grown from the actual receipt of Rs 7075.58 crore in 2015-16 to Rs 8388.3 crore in the revised estimates of 2016-17."
"The state's own tax revenue in the revised estimates of 2016-17 is Rs 650.63 crore as against the actual receipt of Rs 535.07 crore in 2015-16, growing at 21.59 per cent," he said.

"The non-tax revenue receipt in the revised estimates of 2016-17 is estimated at Rs 506.79 crore as against an actual collection of Rs 392.12 crore in 2015-16, showing a growth of 29 per cent," he said.
In the budget estimate of 2017-18, the state was projecting a revenue receipt of Rs 14,599 crore and a capital receipt of Rs 1,436.75 crore.
Mein said being a destination based tax, Arunachal

would be a net beneficiary in the unified Goods and Services Tax regime and would witness some degree of buoyancy in revenue receipts on this count.
Referring to the reforms in governance as proposed in the budget, Mein said the trinity of JanDhan, Aadhar and Mobile would be used for delivery of citizen services and moving towards a cashless and paperless economy.

E-Office would be made functional along with computerisation of treasuries and a Chief Minister's dashboard on an electronic platform to track progress of key products would be created, he said.
"For IT initiatives, the budget proposes an allocation of Rs 15 crore under the Digital Arunachal scheme," Mein said.
"The government will roll out a new industrial policy and will develop industrial estates in the foothill districts for which a budgetary allocation of Rs 15 crore has been proposed," Mein said, adding an amount of Rs 10 crore has been proposed for developing a food park at Tippi in West Kameng district.

"The budget also emphasised on a model of balanced regional growth with nodes of economic growth in different parts of the state and thrust has been given on rural infrastructure growth," the finance minister added.