JAMMU : The Jammu & Kashmir government today unveiled a Rs 46,473 crore budget packed with a slew of schemes for farmers, traders, women and employees while stamping out “plan and non-plan classification”.
The first budget of the PDP-BJP alliance government, led by Chief Minister Mufti Sayeed, projects a resource gap of Rs 4,336 crore, which it plans to finance with grants to state under the 14th Finance Commission grants and without seeking any additional funding.
In his Budget speech, state Finance Minister Haseeb Drabu said: “This is not a good position to be in. In fact, if anything, it should be exactly the other way round. But there is no way I can help it as it is a legacy of the last 30 years if not more.”
“In 2015-16, the total public expenditure is budgeted to be Rs 46,473 crore. Of this Rs 11,246 crore is for building assets and infrastructure. The remaining Rs 35,227 crore is for current or revenue expenditure,” the former economist said.
“The total revenue receipts of the state in 2015-16 are budgeted to be Rs 42,137 crore leaving a resource gap of Rs 4,336 crore. This is going to be financed by prepositioning of the 14th Finance Commission grants without seeking any additional funding,” Drabu said.
Drabu later told reporters that the broad thrust of the budget is on revival of Jammu and Kashmir economy and it has discarded old plan and non-plan classification, while the focus is on a three-pronged initiative of “government, governance and changes”.
Following the replacement of Planning Commission by NITI Aayog and the acceptance of the 14th Finance Commission Award, Drabu said, the state government has completely changed the structure of its budget.
“J&K is perhaps the first state in the country to align its budget to the changes in the federal fiscal system,” he said.
“The entire old classification of the plan and non-plan has been discarded. This is a major change which has far reaching implications on the allocation, efficiency and monitoring of public expenditure,” he said.
“This change will demystify the budget to a great extent. Now there will be only two categories of expenditure, current and capital; the former being what is spent to meet our daily expenses and the latter is what is spent on making assets on the ground,” he said.
“In the years to come, we can start the mapping of asset creation with money that has been spent. This was impossible in the earlier classification. In the next budget we will provide this House with the details of the physical assets that have been created on the ground by the money that was spent”. (AGENCIES)
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