AGARTALA, May 7 — Tripura Finance Minister Badal Chowdhury today presented in the Assembly a deficit budget of Rs 2991.84 crore that imposes no new taxes, for the 2003-2004 year, reports PTI. He said overall budgetary provision for expenditure for the year would be Rs 2991.84 crore while the receipts would be Rs 2923.49 crore leaving a deficit of Rs 68.35 crore. Chowdhury later told reporters that the deficit would be covered by economy of expenditure without imposing any taxes.
In the budget speech, Chowdhury said the central government’s policy of liberalisation was increasing the gap between the poor and the rich. Wealth was getting concentrated in the hands of fewer people and the path of economic reform as shown by the IMF and WTO had led to growth in unemployment, he said.
Chowdhury said mindless privatisation had led to “our valuable assets getting passed on to private hands at low prices” and added the 10th Plan projection of achieving 8 percent growth was already appearing to be unrealistic because the fiscal deficit of the central government is alarming. He said, “We have continued to utilise the resources made available to us in the best interest of the state” and added the Planning Commission, the ministry of Finance and the Department of North-east had all appreciated the state’s development efforts.
He said, the State achieved highest GSDP growth in the North-east during 1993 to till 2000. “Our GSDP growth during 9th Plan was 7.25 per cent as compared to the national growth rate of 6.8 per cent,” he added.