Just ahead the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Punjab Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal on Monday made sure that the budget was not taxing for the common man. Claiming “improved” fiscal indicators, Manpreet loosen his purse strings to announce slew of new schemes and initiatives covering almost all sections of the society in virtually populist budget, without imposing any new taxes.
With main focus of his Rs 1,58,493 crore budget on agriculture and allied activities, Manpreet announced loan waiver for the families of farmers who have committed suicide because of mounting debts along with the landless farmers in the next phase making an allocation of Rs 3000 crore for the purpose.
Manpreet said that the “effective budget size, after providing for a budget provision of Rs 32,000 crore towards ways and means transactions for the current year, is Rs 1,26,493, and the total receipts are expected to be Rs 1,54,170 crore”.
At the same time, the Minister batted for rationalising VAT on petroleum products in line with the neighbouring states, while also announcing to reduce petrol prices by Rs five per litre and that of diesel by Re one per litre.
Announcing that days of imposing taxes have gone with the implementation of the GST, Manpreet expressed hoped that the improved efficiency in tax compliance and administration and efficient delivery of public services would lead to economising on expenditure and close the “unfunded gap” of Rs 2323 crore, which was Rs 10,273 crore when the Congress government took over.
Centring his budget on agriculture, health, education and the rural and urban infrastructure, the budget proposed hikes in the range of nine to 36 percent in the allocation of funds for these sectors.
“Excluding the effect of debt relief, the allocation to agriculture sector has been increased by Rs 159 crore. Similarly, the allocations for education and health sectors have been raised by 9.75 percent and 10.87 percent respectively. The allocation to develop our rural and urban infrastructure has been hiked by 36.08 percent and 19.94 percent, respectively, whereas 21.32 percent hike in the allocation has been given for improving accessibility and connectivity (roads),” he said.
Besides, Rs 355 crore has been provided to support the sugarcane farmers growers with another Rs 750 crore to for the development of mandi infrastructure with a total budget allocation of Rs 13,643 crore for the agriculture — increase of Rs 159 crore.
The government has also allocated Rs 8969 crore as power subsidy to the farmers for the current fiscal, against Rs 6256 crore in the previous year, besides Rs 1513 crore for the power subsidy for providing power at Rs five per unit to the industrial sector as compared to Rs 1440 crore allotted during previous year.
The government has also made provision of Rs 50 crore in the 2019-20 budget for providing free smart-phones to the state’s youth — an announcement made by the Finance Minister in his first budget of the Congress Government.
Manpreet has also made slew of initiatives including Rs 10 crore for establishing horticulture estates, Rs two crore for Potato Seed Village Scheme, Rs 19.67 crore for setting up integrated facility for fruits and vegetables, Rs 43 crore for setting up multipurpose stadiums at block levels, setting up ‘Iconic Sports Complex’ at Jalandhar on PPP mode, among others.
An allocation of Rs 90 crore for new scheme, ‘Mera Kamm, Mera Maan’, wherein urban unemployed youth between the age group of 18 to 35 years will be assisted by the District Bureaus of Employment and Enterprise for both skilling and wage employment for a specified minimum days in the year.
A provision of Rs 300 crore has been made for the celebrations of 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev in the budget proposals of 2019-20, including setting up Heritage Museum ‘Pind Babe Nanak Da” at Sultanpur Lodhi, Rs 25 crore initial allocation for Dera Baba Nanak Development Authority, establishing Sri Guru nanak Dev National Institute of Inter-faith studies in Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar.
In addition, Rs five crore has been provided to mark the centenary celebrations of Jallianwala Bagh massacre.
Laying bare the budget figures, Manpreet said that the outstanding debt is projected to shoot up to Rs 229611.52 crore in 2019-20 from the previous year’s revised estimates of Rs 212276.44 crore.
However, Manpreet claimed that an effort has been made to put Punjab on the path of fiscal consolidation, and consolidation of previous announcements, made by the government, but the “work is still in progress”.
The budget, third by the Congress Government, has proposed no revenue generation by way of additional resource mobilisation.
Manpreet, in his budget speech, claimed that the State’s Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) had gone up to Rs 5.18 lakh crore in 2018-19 from Rs 4.70 lakh crore in the previous fiscal year.
IMPROVED FINANCES
Blaming the previous SAD-BJP government for its “irresponsible fiscal actions” for the accumulated debt, Manpreet said that the state’s total outstanding debt has been projected at Rs 2,29,612 crore for 2019-20 as against Rs 2,12,276 crore for 2018-19 (revised estimates).
“As against the allowed net borrowing limit of Rs 17,335 crore for financial year 2019-20, the debt servicing is a whopping Rs 30,309 crore...The servicing of the state’s huge debt pre-empted its major revenue receipts, leaving it with little resources for credible efforts,” he said.
For the 2019-20, Manpreet pegged the revenue deficit at Rs 11,687 crore (2.02 percent of GSDP) and fiscal deficit at Rs 19,658 crore (3.40 per cent of GSDP).
Highlighting improved fiscal position, Manpreet said: “When I presented the first budget of this government in 2017-18, there was an unfunded gap of Rs 10,273 crore which was brought down to Rs 4,175 crore in 2018-19. While we see a small carry forward of our liabilities to the next year, for 2019-20, there is now much reduced unfunded gap of Rs 2,323 crore.”
The total revenue receipts has been estimated at Rs 78,510 crore for the next financial year as against Rs 70,399 crore for 2018-19. State’s total receipts have been pegged at Rs 1,54,170 crore.
SECTOR WISE ALLOCATION
Agriculture and Allied Activities : Rs 4120 crore (19.77 percent)
Rural Development : Rs 1527 crore (7.33 percent)
Irrigation and Flood Control: Rs 916 crore (4.40 percent)
Energy : Rs 111 crore (0.53 percent) Industry and Minerals : Rs 143 crore (0.69 percent)
Transport : Rs 1084 crore (5.20 percent)
Science, Technology, Environment: Rs 105 crore (0.50 percent)
General Economic Services: Rs 680 crore (3.26 percent)
Social Services Rs 11,945 crore (57.31 percent)
General Services Rs 210 crore (1.01 percent)
