Budget Highlights

• Revenue expenditure, including security-related expenditure, to touch Rs 51,185 crore
• Capital expenditure Rs 29,128 crore: Rs 5,500 crore for state schemes and Rs 10,423 crore for Central schemes
• Rs 8,300 crore under the Prime Minister's Development Programme
• Rs 1,077 crore for the Panchayati Raj Institutions and urban local bodies
• Outgo on pension, including leave encashment and NPS, Rs 5,100 crore
• The gross state domestic product at Rs 1,57,384 crore
• Tax revenue + non-tax revenue at Rs 16,955 crore
• Tax revenue expected to grow by 10.43%
• Fiscal deficit around 5.7%

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for Employees

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• 1% dearness allowance due from July 1, 2017
• Implementation of the 7th Pay Commission recommendations from April 1, 2018, effective from January 1, 2016
• Eligibility for full pension reduced from 28 years to 20 years of qualifying service
• Unmarried daughters of the employees now eligible for pension once the employee and his/her spouse is no more
• Deposit-linked insurance of GP fund 
• subscribers enhanced to Rs 50 lakh
• All government employees, including pensioners, along with five family members, will be covered under improved Group Mediclaim Insurance Policy
• Personal accidental insurance increased to Rs 10 lakh
• Assured Career Progression Scheme for all gazetted cadres of the engineering departments. Its benefit to reach technical cadres like agriculture, horticulture, animal and sheep husbandry departments

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Sops for businesses

• Alternate incentive in lieu of Central sales tax to the industrial units in the state
• Freight subsidy to the industrial units in the state and transporting their manufactured goods beyond 1,000 km outside the state
• Refund of SGST to all industrial units, which were hitherto eligible for VAT exemption
• Hotels and resorts to pay same power tariff as industries
• Rollout of ‘CM’s Business Interest Relief Scheme’. For all RBI-approved restructured accounts, the government will contribute one third of the total interest payment of all borrowers
• One-time waiver of Rs 147.23 lakh on soft loans provided under the erstwhile PM's package to 19 houseboat owners who had taken such loans from banks other than J&K Bank and SBI
• Waiver of penalty and interest on arrears of tax to all dealers registered under the J&K Value Added Tax, 2005, and J&K General Sales Tax Act, 1962
• To waive interest and penalty on all power arrears owed to the government by the industrialists, hoteliers and tourist resort owners
• Under the Amnesty Scheme for the transport sector, waiving interest and penalty on past arrears of token and passenger tax from July 1, 2016, to March 31, 2017
• A common facility centre for the cricket bat industry at Sethar, Anantnag, in public-private partnership mode

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PSUs get a boost

• Rs 5 crore for meeting cost of VRS/GHS in PSUs
• Revamp of the corporate governance structure of the JKSPDC. To compete with J&K Bank for the top profitable company owned by the state government
• The J&K State Finance Corporation has issued a share buyback offer and has got a good response
• Initiated the process of financial engineering in public enterprises
• Rs 5 crore each to the Handicraft Development and Handloom Development 

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Corporations for raw material and inventory upgrade

• The State Road Transport Corporation being given focused attention to strengthen it so as to clear its liabilities before showcasing it for public-private partnership
• Setting up of a J&K Renewal Energy Corporation to catalyse the development of renewable energy resources
• Capital infusion of Rs 255 crore in Anantnag Central Cooperative Bank, Baramulla Central Cooperative Bank and Jammu Central Cooperative Bank

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Toll abolished

• No toll on vegetables, medicines, sugar, salt, tea, soaps, detergents, sanitary items, coconut water, wheat seeds, tree spray oil, newsprint and jaggery
• Proposed abolition of basic toll on all non-commercial, private light motor vehicles
• Tax abolition on export of all fruits produced within the state
• Relief to the commuters and transporters as tax to be abolished at Lower Munda and Heerpur toll posts

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Welfare of youth

• Students can now repay education loans taken from banks after the completion of their course
• Class VIII as qualification for more trades, both under the norms of National Council for Vocational Training and State Council for Vocational Training

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Insurance for poor, transgender

• Minimum wages of unskilled workers raised to Rs 225 and for skilled labour to Rs 350. A new category of highly skilled workers introduced and Rs 400 fixed as their minimum wages

• Insurance for construction workers and protection against disability, disease and death. To get access to small credit

• Transgender shall be treated as living under the BPL unless indicated otherwise
• Free life and medical insurance cover and a monthly sustenance pension on the pattern of the old-age pension scheme for all transgender above the age of 60 years, who are registered with the Social Welfare Department

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Push to horticulture

• Setting up of walnut processing units in the private sector
• Rs 5 crore for setting up of a community-based marketing network to encourage saffron growers to go back to the traditional system of cultivation
• Rs 25 crore for orchard replantation and high-density plantation
• A scheme for the hiring of CA stores in the areas adjacent to the NCR by the Horticulture Department for the use of apple growers of the state

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Uniform employment code

• A uniform employment code for the state, containing state’s all labour laws. The code shall set out the framework for terms of employment and service
• To constitute a State Finance Commission in terms of the Jammu and Kashmir State Finance Commission for the Panchayats and Municipalities Act, 2011
• A committee of officers and professionals in the area of taxation and industry to work out the framework for bringing the real estate sector, electricity, alcohol and petroleum under the state goods and services tax
• Disaster mitigation fund with an initial corpus of Rs 10 crore

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Scheme for scribes

n Finance Minister Haseeb Drabu announced that the accredited journalists of Jammu and Kashmir will be covered under the Mediclaim Group Insurance Scheme