Kerala finance minister K N Balagopal on Friday presented first paperless budget in the assembly, with spotlight on knowledge economy, infrastructure and allocation of ₹2,000 crore for acquiring land for the high speech rail corridor, K Rail.
The minister proposed an additional resource mobilisation of ₹602 crore through a revision of land tax ( ₹80 crore), one-time increase in fair value of land ( ₹ 20 crore) and hike in fair value of land ( ₹200 crore) and 1% for motor vehicles ( ₹60 crore). To raise additional resources against the spending of ₹1,081 crore, the cumulative deficit was pegged at ₹761.16 crore.
The state government is expecting a revenue of ₹1.63 lakh crore and the expenditure has been pegged at ₹1.62 lakh crore during the financial year 2022-23, the minister said. The government increased land tax, fair value of land and vehicle taxes for more revenue but spared tipplers this time.
Soon after the second Pinarayi Vjiayan government came to power, he had presented an interim budget in June last year.
Balagopal said an initial amount of ₹2,000 crore will be used to acquire land for the project and reiterated the Left Democratic Front government’s policy that funds won’t be a problem for development activities. The state is witnessing a big protest over land acquisition for the project.
In tune with the Union government’s old vehicle scrap policy, the state introduced a green tax on diesel vehicles. The minister said that this will help discourage use of diesel vehicles and encourage electric vehicles.
“The green tax imposed on old vehicles (above 15 years) has been increased by 50%. Besides this, a special tax will be levied on new diesel vehicles to discourage their use,” he said. The state is planning to meet its carbon neutral deadline by 2050 and more such measures will be introduced to meet this.
The minister has also proposed a new IT Park in north Kerala’s Kannur to tap potential of new international airport. He said post-Covid, the government expects a big boom in the IT sector and will do everything possible to explore it more. Besides this, four IT corridors will be built and ₹100 crore have been earmarked to improve the infrastructure development in the sector.
An amount of ₹2,000 crore to check price rise and inflation, has also been allocated.
“Food security is top on our agenda. We will make effective market intervention to control prices of essential commodities,” he said.
The minister said that a data bank of students studying in other countries will be prepared in view of the going crisis in Ukraine. He also allocated ₹10 crore to assist returned students and department of non-resident Keralites affairs will co-ordinate with these students.
Hailing the budget, chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan said it was presented with a development-oriented vision, which includes a pragmatic approach on how to overcome the limitations without getting caught up in crises.
During the first paperless budget as the minister read out details from his I-pad, the Opposition took a dig at treasury benches saying the party was on the forefront of protest against computers and IT once arguing they will rob people of their jobs
Opposition leader V D Satheesan said it was just a jugglery of statistics. “There is no match between the current financial situation of the government and projects announced. Even many announcements in last two budgets remain untouched,” he said
