SME Times News Bureau | 01 Feb, 2018
With an eye on the upcoming
panchayat elections in the state, West Bengal Finance Minister Amit
Mitra on Wednesday presented a Rs 6 crore deficit budget sans any
fresh tax proposals focussing on agriculture and rural areas and
showering sops in the form of social security schemes.
Presenting
his budget for 2018-19, Mitra set aside Rs 100 crore to avoid any
distress sale of agricultural produce and proposed exemption on
mutation fee in case of sell of farmland for agricultural activities,
and increasing pension benefits for old farmers.
"In
order to avoid distress sale and ensure proper support prices for
farmers' produce, ... I propose Rs 100 crore for this special fund,"
he told the state assembly.
After rolling out "Kanyashree"
project with the objective of encouraging education of girls, the
state introduced a new scheme "Rupashree" for marriage
assistance to adult girls coming from economically weaker families
with a budgetary allocation of Rs 1,500 crore.
"I
propose to extend a one-time assistance of Rs 25,000 to the family of
the girl with an annual income upto Rs 1.5 lakh at the time of
marriage after attaining the age of 18 years. This will benefit
annually around six lakh families," he said.
Mitra
also proposed a monthly pension of Rs 1,000 for two lakh physically
challenged persons with 40 percent disability and allocated Rs 250
crore for the scheme.
Admitting the budget's thrust was on
the villages and agriculture, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata
Banerjee, however, claimed it focused only on "development
agenda".
"Our industrial progress is based on
continuous employment creation. We have given focus on villages and
agriculture because rural areas constitute about 82-85 per cent of
the state. The budget also provides funds for schemes on social
security benefits," Banerjee told reporters.
Mitra
criticised the erstwhile Left Front government for creating huge debt
burden for the state and claimed that the Trinamool Congress
government was able to reduce debt-GDP (Gross Domestic Product) ratio
from 40.65 per cent in 2010-11 to 33.71 per cent.
The
total expenditure in Mitra's budget estimates for 2018-19 exceeded by
about Rs six crore the total receipt of Rs 7,79,333.74 crore.
He
also claimed the state ensured creation of 8.92 lakh employment
opportunities during the current fiscal, despite the demonetisation
blow and unplanned implementation of Goods and Services Tax (GST) by
the Centre.
Mitra proposed "full exemption" of
taxes on agricultural income for tea gardens for the next two
financial years and removed education and other cess on tea
production.
To boost the real estate sector, particularly
the housing segment, he proposed to reduce stamp duty by one per cent
on the value of wealth worth Rs 40 lakh to Rs one crore.
West
Bengal's opposition parties described the budget as "directionless"
and "unrealistic".
"This budget is only
making a fool of the people. It is directionless. There are no new
development programmes," said Leader of Opposition Abdul Mannan
of the Congress.
Left Front legislature party leader Sujon
Chakraborty said the approach towards tea gardens and agricultural
land was "unrealistic".
"There is no
mention of prospective employment generation," he said.
State
BJP president Dilip Ghosh alleged that the government was only making
cosmetic changes.