Budget today, govt eyes revenue boost : The Tribune India

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Budget today, govt eyes revenue boost

CHANDIGARH: As Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal gets ready to announce his Budget proposals on Saturday morning, there is hope for lifting the sagging economy of the state.

Budget today, govt eyes revenue boost


Ruchika M Khanna

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 23

As Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal gets ready to announce his Budget proposals on Saturday morning, there is hope for lifting the sagging economy of the state.

With the state’s compensation for the GST rollout increasing by over Rs 2,600 crore in 2018-19 over this financial year and projection of higher revenue receipts on account of higher State Goods and Services Tax (SGST) collections and high non-tax revenues, it will not be as much a tightrope for Manpreet as it was this fiscal.

What Manpreet can take solace in, as he presents the economic outlook for the next fiscal through his Budget, is that there would be higher compensation for the GST. As against Rs 18,808 crore received as compensation for the GST this year, the projected compensation is Rs 21,441 crore in the coming fiscal. However, the revenue generation projections made by the government for the ongoing fiscal going haywire and the state remaining in dire straits is likely to be used as an ammunition by the Opposition benches.

Former Finance Minister and Akali Dal MLA Parminder Singh Dhindsa says that the Congress government will have to be answerable to the House for a consistent bad performance in managing the finances and the state not being able to meet its committed liabilities on time. “This is even as Punjab was the third biggest beneficiary from the Centre in terms of GST compensation. After Karnataka and Gujarat, Punjab got the third highest compensation of Rs 2,838 crore. The revenues are up in the post GST era, but bad planning led to mismanagement,” he said.

The Congress government, however, insists that they got an “inheritance of loss”, with unpaid bills worth Rs 13,000 crore in the state Treasury and additional debt liabilities of Rs 31,000 crore. Officials maintain that debt servicing takes a large part of their finances. Though the government has made it clear that it will go in for additional resource mobilisation (ARM), how they intend doing it will be clear only once the Budget proposals are tabled before the Punjab Vidhan Sabha.

Indications are that the state will look at higher buoyancy in tax collection and higher non-tax revenues (earned from Punjab Roadways, urban development, including penalties for regularising of illegal colonies). Manpreet’s Budget proposals are expected to carry forward the Congress poll agenda, with budgetary allocations for fulfilling promises made by the ruling party before it came to power.

Official sources in the Punjab Finance Department have told The Tribune that besides sizeable allocations for the Crop Loan Waiver Scheme, the efforts will be for diversification in agriculture, better irrigation network, rejuvenating the loss-making cooperative sugar mills and for re-energising the earlier announced employment. The consolidation of the already made announcements and overall fiscal consolidation will be the key. Efforts will also be on to ensure that the revenue deficit is contained, say sources.

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