Uttaranchal chambers hail Budget

A day after Uttaranchal Chief Minister ND Tiwari presented the Budget in the assembly, various chambers today described it as a balanced one while maintaining that growth drivers like infrastructure, tourism and small-scale industries had been given very little preference.

The CII today said it had given special focus on women's empowerment, education, and employment generation, and measures leading to greater transparency in governance.

The Budget had highlighted improvement in the fiscal scenario wherein the revenue deficit for 2006-07 was estimated to reduce to Rs 155.71 crore, as against an estimated revenue deficit of Rs 433.49 crore for 2005-06, said Lovelena Mody, chairperson, CII Uttaranchal State Council.

The CII has appreciated the state government's move to declare 2006-07 as the "Women Empowerment Year" and also measures like "Gender Budgeting" wherein all plan departments have been instructed to allocate 30% of their resources for schemes related to women and children. The Budget also proposes relaxation in stamp duty for all purchase of land/house/shop etc if it is in the name of women and 30% horizontal reservation to women in all State Government jobs.

While appreciating the various steps taken on the employment generation front, CII welcomed the State Government’s decision to provide Rs 26 crores for financing of Self Help Groups, a 50% increase over the last year and Rs 32.5 crore for the Uttaranchal Universal Employment Scheme. This is in addition to the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme being launched in three districts and an additional 3 districts likely to be brought under the scheme this year. Besides this the Rs 20,000 crores that the state is expected to receive in various industrial development projects is likely to generate direct employment for 150,000 persons.

Some other important highlights of the budget include setting up of a Rs 50 crore Joint Venture Fund to encourage Public Private Partnership, allocation of Rs 500 crores, which is more than double the figure for last year, for Housing and Urban Development department to strengthen the basic infrastructure in the urban areas, initiatives to popularize the "Himadri" brand under which products made in Uttaranchal, handicrafts & cottage industries, would be sold and development of the key spiritual tourism destinations in an integrated manner.

The CII said that given the inherent strengths of the state vis-a-vis tourism there could have been more direct measures on tourism including those related to Industry Status to Tourism, Tourism Infrastructure and facilitation of investments in the sector as also suggested in CII's Pre Budget Memorandum.

Meanwhile, Indian Industry Association President Pankaj Gupta has also described the budget as balanced one but said it lacks growth as well as fiscal management, fail to understand as to how the fiscal deficit is growing and the revenue deficit decreasing at the same time, Gupta noted.