Five-fold hike for ex-servicemen

Vijay Mohan

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 18

At Rs 39.5 crore, the allocations for the annual plan expenditure approved for defence services welfare in the state Budget for 2015-16 has seen a five-fold increase from the revised outlay of Rs 7.8 crore for the 2014-15 fiscal.

The annual plan approved in the Budget for 2014-15 was Rs 33.7 crore, but the expenditure was later cut down to Rs 7.8 crore. The actual expenditure in 2013-14 was Rs 4.5 crore.

The major factor for the sharp hike in budgetary provisions over 2013-14 is allocation for the upcoming Punjab State War Memorial at Amritsar. A provision of Rs 30 crore was made in the 2014-15 budget, which was revised to Rs 5 crore. For 2015-16, Rs 30 crore has again been provided for. Provision for construction of sainik rest houses in newly created districts is also up at Rs 4.21 crore from 2014-15 fiscal’s revised outlay of Rs 50 lakh. Sainik School, Kapurthala, which has not received any financial assistance from the state government for the past at least two years, will get Rs 1 crore. Funding for schemes to train wards of ex-servicemen for joining the armed forces is up by Rs 50 lakh to Rs 2 crore.

For grants to widows of martyrs, Rs 1 crore has been provided. While no budgetary provision was made under this head last year, Rs 10 lakh was later provided in revised outlay.

Another Rs 1 crore has been allocated for paying Rs 1 lakh incentive to those from the state joining the armed forces as officers. The state government allocated Rs 20 lakh in the Budget last year, which was later revised to Rs 50 lakh.