Finance and Commercial Taxes Minister Jagdish Deora has said that increasing per capita income and bringing the state in the category of leading states is the topmost priority of the state government. He said that budget priorities have to be fixed with a view to increase the income of the farmers and take advantage of the conducive environment for investment.
Finance Minister Deora was holding a discussion with industry groups and experts associated with financial institutions in the pre-budget discussion process at the Academy of Administration here.
Deora said that innovation has been started to prepare the budget proposal so that the budget proposals can be made more public-welfare and result-oriented with the ideological participation of the general public, eminent economists and subject-experts.
Deora said that this initiative has yielded positive results. In this process more than 2 thousand 500 suggestions were received. On the basis of these suggestions topics like child budget, increase in capital expenditure, implementation of PESA rule, proper budget provision in health sector, giving special incentives to semi-conductor companies, giving special package for wind power generation, special attention to MSME sector and timely payment of incentives to industries were included. Its results are also apparent in the current financial year.
He said that the concept of democracy gets strengthened if the budget of the state is made by the people of the state, for the people and by the people.
Deora said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has resolved to take the country’s economy to $5 trillion by the year 2025. Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan is making efforts to ensure that our state should contribute significantly in this resolution of the Prime Minister. Our effort is to make the state’s economy reach $550 billion. He said that the Prime Minister has called for giving maximum employment opportunities to the youth.
Under the leadership of Chief Minister Chouhan, work is being done in the form of a mission in the state to increase employment opportunities. Approvals have been issued to fill up more than one lakh posts in the next one year. Minister Deora thanked all the experts and representatives who participated in the pre-budget discussion.
Expressing gratitude to all the participants, Additional Chief Secretary Finance Ajit Kesari said that many good suggestions have been received in this process of pre-budget discussion which will also be considered. He said that increasing the income of the state is the focus of the government. Suggestions have been received from experts on this subject. He said that the process of consultation with experts from various fields on the budget will continue.
Among those who took part in the pre-budget discussion and gave their suggestions were the subject-experts including Hemant Soni, General Manager, Reserve Bank of India, Nirupam Mehrotra, Chief General Manager, NABARD, Sunil Sharma, Chairman, MP Gramin Bank, Krishna Kumare, Tribal Affairs. Kanta Singh, Deputy Country Representative, UN Women, Prof Shamika Ravi, Vice President, Observer Research Foundation New Delhi, Anurag Behar, Vice Chancellor Azim Premji University, Prof Indranil Mukhopadhyay, Professor Yogesh Kumar, Samarthan, Environmentalist, Prof Pratap Jena, NIPFP, Vipin Goyal, Chairman (CREDAI), Ashok Kumar Singh, Chief General Manager (Finance) joined the discussion through video conferencing and presented their views.