Finance minister downplays demonetisation effect, says state on right track
“We will take more loans if needed, but spend them on development work,” said finance minister Jayant Malaiya, while participating in the budget debate in assembly, on Monday.
Opposition MLAs had raised the question that the government had curtailed the budget of the department and it would affect development.
To this, the FM said the government had properly allocated funds to the departments, claiming since the government was formed in 2003-04, it had been presenting budget of profit. He compared the Congress government’s financial situation to the present situation, claiming, for last 13 years, the budget had grown up to eight times and the government was spending more on development.
He also claimed the Centre was providing 12 times more amount to the state to run the development programmes. He discarded the claim of bad effect of demonetisation on the state economy, saying in November the state had received 24 per cent more revenue, in December it was 12 per cent, in January 15.2 per cent.
“Till February 2017, total 11 per cent revenue of the state has increased,” he added.
He said tax on heavy vehicles had been slashed to 12 per cent from 18 per cent to give boost to the economy. For the in-family property transfer, only 0.5 per cent tax had been decided, from the earlier 2.5 per cent.
“To promote cashless transactions state government is doing 75 per cent payment online and many attractive plans have been prepared to promote PoS machines,” Malaiya added.
