By advancing its presentation by about two months and merging the plan and non-plan funds for cohesive and hustle-free spending, Chief Minister Raghubar Das on Monday proposed Rs75,673.42 crore Budget for 2017-18. As expected, education, skill development and rural sectors have received the most attention which is going to be on the agenda of the Government throughout this ‘garib kalyan’ year.
The total size of the Budget is around Rs12,171 crore or 19.17 per cent over and above of the previous year’s estimate. Out of total Rs75,673.42 crore, Rs57,861.32 would be borne by Revenue Expenditure; i.e. income earned by the State from its own sources, whereas the rest Rs17,812.10 would come on Capital Expenditure. Notably, rise over Capital Expenditure is more (20.84 per cent) than Revenue Expenditure (18.66 per cent) over the previous year Budget.
However, no new tax is being levied, the State would be getting Rs19,900 crore from its own tax revenue, Rs11,258 crore from non-tax revenue and Rs13,414.5 crore from Central grants for spending. State’s share in Central taxes is expected to be Rs21,034 crore.
Nevertheless, this would keep the fiscal deficit at 2.29 per cent of GSDP that within the limit set in the financial regularity and budget management regime. GSDP is expected to remain Rs2,82,572 crore and up by 13.19 per cent than the previous year.
Major allocations have been made to priority sectors. Education with higher and technical education and skill development has run away with bulk Rs10,517 crore or 13.90 per cent of the total. Out of this, Rs1,167 crore is for higher education but remarkable jump has been made in the field of technical education and skill development which has gone from Rs145 crore to Rs705 crore. Rural sector has got allocation of Rs10,473 crore which is 19.5 per cent more than the last year. Agriculture Budget has also seen a jump of 12 per cent.
Justifying the attention, the Chief Minister first during his nearly two hours long Budget speech and later while talking to the media, said mitigation of poverty through skill development and stopping migration through better irrigation facilities topped his priorities this time.
“Jharkhand is the first State to work in the direction of ‘garib kalyan’ which we would be observing this year. Rural development has to play a pivotal role in our GSDP growth. We have lots of local resources that have to be tapped through skill development, particularly among women. Also, irrigation needed greater attention to get three crops and stop people from migrating. We want to double the farmers’ income,” said the CM.
He stressed over the need to promote ‘sakhi mandals’ which would be strengthened financially. Gender Budget has been given Rs7,684 crore or 30 per cent more than what was allocated in the last budget. The CM, answering a question about lowering health budget, said that deficiencies in women in general would be taken care of reducing the need of medical treatments. As many as 108 CM Kitchens would come up for better nutrition among women and children.
As per its declaration made, the Government has made special provision for Scheduled Castes and Tribes in the Budget. Total allocation for SC/ST classes is Rs43,020 crore. Poor students of the categories for the first time would be covered through ‘CM Education loan Guarantee Fund’ which is going to have a corpus of Rs50 crore. Also, families of primitive tribes would be provided with 35 kg ration packets at their doorsteps.
The Budget besides, some annual goals has also projected long term targets for the sustainable development of Jharkhand. The CM said that the Government would be coming up with a long term vision document for 15 years, development strategy for seven years and action plan for three years in order to walk along the goals set for country’s ‘Sustainable Development Goal-2030’.
The CM also presented Action Taken Report suggesting that out of 172 schemes announced in last year’s Budget, 134 have been completed. He,on the occasion, termed ‘dova scheme’ successful and four lakh new small farm ponds would be constructed this year.