Finance minister Agarwal presents Rs 89,230 crore budget in Vidhan Sabha
Wednesday, 28 February 2024 | PNS | DEHRADUN
Dhami Govt has focussed on welfare schemes, infrastructure, health & education in the budget
Finance minister Prem Chand Agarwal presented a budget of Rs 89,230.07 crore for the financial year 2024-25 in the Vidhan Sabha on the second day of the budget session on Tuesday. He presented a surplus budget of Rs 4337.13 crore. The budgetary provisions are 15 per cent higher than last year.
In the budget the Dhami government has focused on the primary sector, welfare schemes, health and education sectors and infrastructure development.
In the budget document the government’s estimated receipts stand at Rs 88,597.11 crore while the expenses are estimated at Rs 89,230.07 crore. The estimated receipts in the revenue account are Rs 60,552.90 crore and Rs 28,044.21 crore under the capital account. In the budgetary expenditure Rs 55,815.77 crore is under revenue account while Rs 33,414.30 crore is under capital accounts.
The consideration of the Lok Sabha elections is clearly visible in the budget as the Dhami government has earmarked a sum of Rs 2,756.33 crore for welfare schemes and Rs 2,910.22 crore for rural development. Similarly a sum of Rs 2184.64 and Rs 717.89 crore has been allotted for welfare of scheduled castes and scheduled tribes respectively.
Agarwal started his speech with a poem of Prime Minister Narendra Modi about Uttarakhand. He also paid his tributes to the statehood activists and brave soldiers who sacrificed their lives for the nation. He said that the Uttarakhand government under the leadership of chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami has taken a historic decision of bringing the bill on Uniform Civil Code (UCC). The minister said that the State government has provided an excellent ecosystem for the business due to which memoranda of understanding worth Rs 3.5 lakh crore were inked during the Global Investors Summit 2023. He informed that grounding of projects worth Rs 44,000 crore has already been done.
In his speech the Finance minister said that a surplus of Rs 4,437.13 crore is expected in this financial year while a fiscal deficit of Rs 9,416.43 crore is expected. This fiscal deficit is 2.32 per cent of the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) of the State.
In the budget the State government has allotted a sum of Rs 13,780 crore for infrastructure development under different departments. The Dhami government has allotted a sum of Rs 15,376 crore for education and health.
A provision of Rs 390.83 crore has been for the Tourism department. The budget allocates a sum of Rs 1,045.41 crore for crop husbandry and research. Similarly a sum of Rs 241.83 crore has been made for cooperative development. An allocation of Rs 3,017.25 crore has been made for the Public Works Department (PWD). The Finance minister has made a provision of Rs 1,374.69 crore for the energy sector, Rs 506.71 for transport, Rs 1,061.11 crore for forest and Rs 791.54 crore for animal husbandry.
Budget dedicated to poor, farmers, unemployed & women: Agarwal
DEHRADUN :The Finance minister Prem Chand Agarwal has said that the budget 2024-25 is dedicated to the poor, youth, women and farmers. He said that a sum of Rs 5,658 crore has been kept aside for the welfare schemes for the poor. Similarly, a sum of Rs 1,689 crore has been allotted for youth welfare. A provision of Rs 250 crore has been made for the national games. Interacting with the media persons after presenting the budget the Finance minister said that a sum of Rs 2,415 crore has been made for the farming sector. He said that the GSDP of the State has increased at a rate of Rs 7.63 per cent which is higher than national average and exuded confidence that the GSDP of the State will be more than Rs four lakh crore in the year 2024-25. The Finance minister said that the budgetary provisions this year are 15 per cent more than last year and claimed that the borrowings of the state are progressively decreasing. Agarwal said that the per capita income of the State has increased by 12 per cent in the year 2023-24 and is now at Rs 2,60,201.
