The state government is ready to present Rs 1,800 crore first adjunct budget in the coming winter session of the Assembly. Of the total demand of first supplementary grants of Rs 2,200 crore, the state is likely to sanction only Rs 1,800 crore.
“We will have to allocate a major portion of Rs 500 crore for power sector under a single account head,” state Finance Minister Raghavji told Business Standard. It will also allocate Rs 200 crore under the health head. Another amount of Rs 100 crore will also go to power sector under various heads. The 11-day session will mainly focus on demands for health, education and other social sectors.
The state government has recently dolled out Rs 1,386 crore power subsidies to supply subsidised power to farmers. Further, power generation, transmission and distribution require a huge amount, for which the government has to bank upon central aids.
“There are more than 60 demands under various heads, we also have to allocate central fund under the coming budget session,” the minister said.
He is also likely to announce few new scholarship schemes for school students. In this first supplementary budget the state will clearly monitor the projects which failed to take off, though sanctioned during the full budget. “In most of the cases, departments demand budget and appropriate in other account heads, as a result of which the expenses on tender and documentation process go waste,” said an official.
For the last two consecutive years the state government is presenting revenue surplus budget, however, non-plan expenditure size is yet in excess of revenue generation. The plan size this year was Rs 19,028 crore, up 23.95 per cent from the previous year size of Rs 15,351 crore.
A major allocation of the budget went to road construction and NREGS. Of the total plan expenditure, Rs 2,489 crore was earmarked under road construction and Rs 5,173 crore under NREGS scheme, while 50 per cent allocation went to agriculture. The major concern of the department is total liabilities to GSDP ratio, which is 40 per cent and interest payment to revenue receipts, which has gone up by 25 per cent, to 12.43 per cent.
