Bihar Budget gives top priority to agriculture, ignores industry

Bihar Budget gives top priority to agriculture, ignores industry

Patna,(BiharTimes): Flats, four-wheelers, two-wheelers, tobacco products, houses, bricks etc are set to cost more in Bihar as the Budget for 2012-13 proposes a hike in the taxes on them.

Presenting a revenue surplus Budget deputy chief minister-cum-finance minister Sushil Kumar Modi on Friday gave special thrust on agriculture and education, while increasing taxes on works contract and vehicles and raising VAT on tobacco products and brick-kilns. The Budget proposes to spend Rs 28,000 crore on the annual state plan size for 2012-13 from the Rs 78,686.82 crore Budget that has a surplus of Rs 7,088.59 crore. The outlay worth Rs 28,000 crore is Rs 4,000 crore more than the last financial year. Agriculture remains the top priority of the government, accounting for 34 per cent of the total outlay, that is, Rs 9,508 crore.However, the state government has earmarked only Rs 472.44 crore for industries. There is hardly any difference with the portion allotted in the budget for the current year (2011-12) — Rs 472 crore. Interestingly, investment, industries and public-private-partnership hardly find any mention in the Budget. Modi announced that the surplus revenue worth Rs 7,088.59 crore will be used for investment in physical infrastructure, generating productive capital assets like roads, buildings, power, schools, health centres and irrigation facilities. Builders will have to pay one per cent of the total value of the apartment under what he described as a “compounding scheme”. The budget proposes to raise taxes on various categories of brick dealers by 15 per cent. As of now, there are three categories of brick-kiln operators paying annual tax in the slab of Rs 60,000, Rs 80,000 and Rs 1,00,000. Now onwards they will have to pay 15 per cent more.Government has raised the taxes on tobacco and its products from 13.3 per cent to 20 per cent. Taxes on vehicles, both four-wheelers and two-wheelers, have been raised from six per cent to seven per cent. Modi said that there is a central guideline for keeping the taxes on vehicles at six per cent and above.The total expenditure of the government on plan and non-plan heads is estimated to be Rs 78,686.82 crore. Apart from the state plan size of Rs 28,000 crore, Bihar is supposed to spend Rs 5,255.18 crore on centrally sponsored schemes (CSS) and Rs 108.67 crore on the centrally proposed schemes (CPS) that takes its total plan size (inclusive of CSS and CPS) to Rs 33,363.85 crore.The government’s revenue receipts in 2012-13 stand at Rs 68,047.86 crore that includes Rs 33,126.33 crore as the state’s share in central taxes and Rs 16,083.77 crore as grants-in-aid from the Union government besides the state’s own tax and non-tax revenues. The government’s fiscal deficit stands at Rs 7,569.43 crore, that is, 2.87 per cent of the gross state domestic product (GSDP). Even by the end of 2011-12, the fiscal deficit was shown as 5.45 per cent. Modi said the government had also focused on education with an estimated allocation of Rs 3,670.26 crore, which is 13.11 per cent of the total outlay. The allocated amount will be spent on improving the overall educational infrastructure, including buildings, libraries and teachers.The construction of roads now stands third in the priority of the 2012-13 Budget with the government proposing to spend Rs 3,613.63 crore — 12.91 per cent of the total allocation. The budget has raised the allocation for health, water resources, energy, industries, welfare of the minorities, extremely backward classes, maha-dalits, forestation and other sectors. These sectors have got five to seven per cent more in comparison to the previous year. The 80-page Budget speech said that in the next 10 years, 10 lakh self-help groups of 1.25 crore rural women would be formed on the basis of their habitations––65,000 village and 534 block-level organizations would be formed for empowerment of women in order to promote entrepreneurial and other activities among them. Under self-employment mission, 15 lakh rural youths would be given skill training during this period.
The state government would launch training programme for engineers, architects, builders and 15,000 artisans for construction of quake-resistant buildings in 2012-13. With the approval given by the Centre to the Durgawai reservoir scheme, work would be started on the project in the next financial year and completed by 2014. This would help irrigate land in the command area of the project in Rohtas and Kaimur districts.
A major initiative has been taken for the setting up of hi-tech nurseries at eight places––Muzaffarpur, Motihari, Bettiah, Buxar, Katihar, Banka, Rajgir, and Dehri-on-Sone. At least 63 permanent nurseries for growing quality plants would be established by the state directorate of horticulture. The latter would transfer 100 nurseries to the forest department. In financial year 2012-13, at least 82 such nurseries would be set up.Providing identity cards to the farmers involved in honey production, reviving the moribund Maulana Mazhrul Haque Arabic-Persian University and opening an engineering college in Rohtas and Munger districts are few of the new initiatives that the government has proposed to take up during 2012-13.Besides, there would be a scheme for creation of Kisan Paudhshala (farmer's nursery) on 1,500 acres of land of the farmers for growing popular varieties of plants. Every Kisan Paudhshala will have a capacity of growing 10,000 plants. As many as 115 private nurseries would be established by farmers or other persons. Each private nursery would have a capacity of growing 20,000 plants. According to Modi in 2012-13, Bihar Forest Academy would be established. Air Quality test centres would be opened at Gaya and Muzaffarpur and environment test centres would be established in nine towns. Gaya, Bhagalpur Darbhanga, Muzaffarpur, Begusarai, Sasaram, Purnia, Bettiah, and Rajgir.The state government has also decided to introduce an “exit policy” for entrepreneurs in possession of the Bihar Industrial Area Development Authority (BIADA) land without setting up any unit and also the “transfer policy” for the ones willing to set up viable units on them.

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