KOLKATA JULY 7: The first Budget of Trinamool Congress’ third term have laid stress on the populist schemes, and this year, the government has allocated ₹3,08,727 crore in the Budget.
While highlighting the student credit card scheme that was launched on June 30, state industry minister Partha Chatterjee said that the interest rate of four per cent will be levied as a part of subvention, while the rest will be borne by the government. In addition, no collateral will be required for availing the scheme, and the the loan amount will be fully insured and guaranteed by the state. He further said that the state government would soon launch West Bengal basic income scheme christened as ‘Lakshmir Bhandar’ to support a woman member of every household.
Meanwhile, under the scheme, ₹1,000 will be doled out to every women belonging to the SC/ST category households and ₹500 to those belonging to the general category. Chatterjee also maintained that the government will transfer the money directly to respective individual’s bank accounts.
Further, he noted that farmers have started receiving benefits from the Krishak Bandhu scheme. He said that the government’s ‘duare ration’
the scheme under which food grains are delivered to doorsteps — will be scaled up in the days to come.
During his speech, the industry minister also proposed allocation for the establishment of major departments for the ongoing financial year, with health and school education getting a substantial part of the pie. The budget speech was critical of the rise in fuel prices in the country.
In this year’s budget speech, the government waived road tax on passenger transport vehicles and also offered a rebate on stamp duty as it tabled a ₹3,08,000 crore budget in the assembly for the financial the year 2021-22.
While presenting the Budget, Chatterjee said the government has decided to extend the one-time exemption of motor vehicle tax for the period starting July 1, 2021, to December 31, 2021. Additionally, the government has also proposed to reduce stamp duty by two per cent for registration of deeds, while the circle rate was slashed by ten per cent. It may be worth mentioning that Chatterjee had presented the Budget as the current finance minister Amit Mitra was unwell then. In February, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had placed the vote-on-account in the House, during which 26 populist schemes and projects were announced.
What Opposition parties say
According to Opposition parties, the Budget failed to look after the the welfare of the Matua and Rajbangshi community as well as overall development of North Bengal In the Budget presented in February. In fact the truth is that many schemes were exclusively announced for both the Matua and Rajbangshi community.
Suvendu Adhikari, Leader of the Opposition, said, “The Budget failed to highlight the development of North Bengal. Even in the Budget, wehave not seen any schemes exclusively for the Rajbangshi and the Matua community although the chief minister has claimed during the election rallies ahead of the polls that Matua, and Rajbangshi communities are an an integral part of Bengal and several schemes will be adopted in the coming days.”