Chhattisgarh’s ‘Budget 2016-17’ is expected to get clearly aligned towards Centre’s key development agenda focussed sharply on issues of infrastructure, education, skill development, urban renewal, tourism and agriculture.
Preliminary indications clearly reflect a huge focus on infrastructure spend to attract sizeable investment in the industrial domain followed by skill development to synergise with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Make in India’ vision.
On the education front, the indications seem to focus on higher education at a much higher level than school education as the skill development agenda of the Centre is directly aligned with quality higher education for churning out better professionals for the industry to absorb.
The other key indication seems to push the urban renewal agenda forward further with Centre’s Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) scheme in nine districts of Chhattisgarh than just its two cities- Raipur and Bilaspur in the Centre’s ‘Smart City’ list.
Another possibility of witnessing a higher budget allocation in the urban infrastructure domain could be fast tracking projects in Chhattisgarh’s new capital city Naya Raipur ahead of the industry landing up to open units in the proposed Electronic Manufacturing Cluster which received Centre’s nod recently in the new capital city in a sprawling area of 70 acres of land.
Chhattisgarh it seems, is also in a hurry to fast track setting up new industrial zones in many districts of the State. As interesting aspect of the budget 2016-17 could be a higher budget allocation for certain key districts being put on a faster development roll such as Durg, Dhamtari, Surguja, Bilaspur, Korba, Ranjandgaon, Jagdalpur (Bastar district), Kanker, Kondagaon and Janjgir-Champa districts.
To cite an example, the State Government is developing a new industrial area in around 10 hectares of land in Dhamtari district of Chhattisgarh. As per information received, around 10 hectares of government land located in Kachna village of Dhamtari’s Kurud block will be utilized for developing the industrial area, officials stated.
The consent for transferring the identified land to the Industries Department has been provided by the State government and in this regard, the Directorate of Industries has also written a letter to Dhamtari District Collector, officials stated.
Notably, on April 4, 2015, the Centre released Rs 1157.94 crore for the financial year 2015-16 for Chhattisgarh as first Installment of ‘Devolution’ as per 14th Finance Commission recommendations. The Central government released more than Rs 37,420 crore to all the states for financial year 2015-16 as the first installment of devolution.
On May 25 last year, Chief Minister Raman Singh had announced that Chhattisgarh’s revenue collections have increased by 10 per cent as the Central Government had accepted the recommendations of the 14th Finance Commission.
About Rs 6400 crore extra funds will now be available for the State. The royalty on mining resources and the auction of coal mines will bring extra funds amounting to Rs 2200 crore to the State, he had stated said while congratulating Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Notably, in August 2015, the Centre has allocated Rs 4.29 crore during the current financial year to the Chhattisgarh government for implementation of ‘Sub Mission on Agricultural Mechanization’ (SMAM) , officials stated. On January 7 , 2016, Chhattisgarh was allocated Rs 228.56 crore as Additional Central Assistance (ACA) by Union Ministry of Home Affairs.
Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh had approved the State-wise allocation of Additional Central Assistance of Rs 1000 crores to 35 worst lWE affected districts in seven states. Out of these 35 districts, there are 16 lWE affected districts in Jharkhand, 8 in Chhattisgarh, 6 in Bihar, 2 in Odisha and one each in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
In July last year, the Centre had announced that it would award contracts for three key road projects in Chhattisgarh measuring 149 kms to be developed at an estimated cost of Rs 3,522 crores.
It was targetted to award 273 road projects in the country covering a length of approximately 12,900 km amounting to about Rs 1,26,700 crore during 2015-16 under various schemes of the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. The Central Government had also sanctioned an amount of Rs 305.56 crore for 10 important works under Central Road Fund Scheme during 2015-16 in Chhattisgarh.
On December 2 , 2015, the Centre released the first installment of Rs 55.29 crore out of the approved Rs 573.40 crore for State Annual Action Plan (SAAP) under Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) project for the current financial year in Chhattisgarh.
Notably, the Union Ministry of Urban Development has released Central Assistance of Rs 1,062.27 crore to 13 States as first installment under AMRUT project for the current financial year, officials stated.
This is a part of total Central Assistance of Rs 5,311.38 crore committed to 13 States for which the Ministry has approved Atal Mission Action Plans for 2015-16 entailing total investment of Rs 11,671.76 cr in 286 cities in these States.
The Ministry has so far cleared a total of 939 projects for 286 cities with most of them related to water supply and sewerage network services.