The Madhya Pradesh government today passed Rs 2,300 crore first supplementary budget through voice vote. Of this, the government has earmarked a capital expenditure of Rs 1,700 crore. A lion’s share of the budget will go to power sector, school education, irrigation, panchayat and roads.
Silencing the Opposition FinanceMinister Raghavji today said, “Only handcart pullers will get Rs 10 crore as welfare fund for them, it had never happened during the previous congress regime.” He said the state was in a better financial condition without imposing additional burden of tax on commoner. “If we compare national and state growth rate, Madhya Pradesh has registered 17 per cent growth vis-a-vis 31 per cent decline in the national growth rate during the year 2006-2007 and 2008-2009,” he said. “When the Congress regime had taken over reigns from BJP-ruled Sundarlal Patwa government in 1992 the state had debt burden of Rs 5,000 crore, which swelled seven times to Rs 35,000 crore when the Digvijay Singh government was voted out of power. However, during the BJP-ruled present government the state burden had gone up only one-and-a-half times to Rs 55, 000 crore (net Rs 47,000 crore),” he added.
Of the total demands of Rs 2,322 crore, power sector will get Rs 500 crore for working capital, Rs 535 crore for school education, Rs 224 crore for irrigation, Rs 205 crore for Panchayat, Rs 163 crore for roads, Rs 79 crore for schedule tribes, Rs 60 crore for women and child welfare, Rs 50 crore for forests, Rs 41 crore for higher education, Rs 25 crore for health, Rs 18 crore for minority welfare, Rs 9 crore for schedule caste and Rs 11.49 crore will go to the horticulture sector.
