Amid sloganeering and playing of cymbals by the Opposition Congress and NCP demanding total farm loan waiver, the BJP-led Maharashtra government on Saturday presented a Rs 4,511 crore revenue deficit budget for the 2017-18 which proposed a modest dose of taxation involving an additional revenue of Rs 396 crore to the State exchequer during the year.
The ruling Shiv Sena members, who had earlier threatened to block the presentation of the state budget till such time the Devendra Fadnavis dispensation did not announce farm loan waiver in the state, sat quietly as Finance Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar read out the budget speech, amid noisy protests by the Opposition members in the State Assembly.
Informed sources in the ruling saffron alliance said in the evening that chief minister Devendra Fadnavis had spoken top Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray on Friday evening, after his return from New Delhi where he had taken up the farm loan waiver issue with the Centre and sought waiver of loans taken by the debt-trapped farmers in the State.
Fadnavis had urged Uddhav to drop his party’s plans to stage protests during the state budget presentation, a request the latter had accepted.
However, the aggression of the Opposition Congress and NCP legislators were so belligerent that they made bonfire of budget speech copies in the Vidhan Bhavan complex soon after Mungatiwar of the BJP and Minister of State for Finance Deepak Kesarkar of Shiv Sena presented the budget in the State Assembly and Council respectively.
Mungantiwar faced the Opposition’s wrath soon after he entered the State Assembly to present his budget. The irate Congress and NCP members rushed to the well of the House, displayed banners and shouted slogans demanding waiver of farm loans in the state. They also played cymbals and shouted slogans like ‘karj maafi, jhalas payji’ (we want loan waiver), “bol, bol, halla bol, halla bol, jor se bol” and “vinash kale, viprit buddhi’,
Speaker Haribhau Bagade repeatedly requested the Opposition members not to disrupt the Finance Minister’s budget speech, but in vain. leader of Opposition Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil, senior leaders like former Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, Patangrao Kadam (from Congress) and former Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, former Speaker Dilip Walse-Patil and Jayant Patil (all of NCP) were on their feet demanding waiver of farm loans.
Presenting a Rs 4,511 crore revenue deficit budget for 2017-18 which estimated that the revenue receipts during 2017-18 would be Rs 2,43,737 crore as against the anticipated revenue expenditure of 2,48,248 crore, Mungantiwar came up with new taxation proposals which would result in a net revenue gain of Rs 396 crore to the State Exchequer.
Announcing that Maharashtra was to ready to implement GST from July 1, 2017, the Finance Minister said that for the purpose of computation of compensation to states, annual growth rate of 14 per cent on the revenue year 2015-16 would be considered. “Compensation shall also include Octroi in Mumbai and the local Body tax,” he said.
Among other things, Mungantiwar proposed an increase in VAT on the MRP rate of country and Indian Made foreign liquor from 23.08 per cent to 25.93 per cent and an increase in tax on weekly lottery from Rs 70,000 to Rs 1 lakh,.
On the concession side, Mungantiwar announced VAT exemptions on sweet corn processing industry from April 1, 2005 to March 31,2016, on textile processing industry from April 8, 2011 5to April 30, 2012 on Yan sizing and warming industry from Apri1 1,2005 to March 31, 2016.
The Finance Minister also announced VAT exemption on Amsul and essential commodities like rice, wheat, pulses, its floor, turmeric, chillies, tamarind, jaggery, coconut, coriander seeds, fenugreek, parsley (suva), papad, wet dates, Solapur chaddar, towels and reduction on Aviation Turbine fuel from 5 per cent to one per cent.
Describing his budget as an “Agriculture-centric” one, Mungantiwar made an allocation of Rs 8233 crore on Water Resources department, popularly known as irrigation department.
Mungantiwar also announced the merger of plan and non-plan from 2017-18. “The focus will now be capital expenditure. This change will bring in more flexibility to each department to use their entire departmental allocation effectively instead of only the component which is only 25% of the total size of the budget.Departments will also be able to earmark adequately for maintenance of assets which have been created in the last sixty years,” he said.