Chandigarh, March 13
Haryana has imposed 20 per cent sales tax on the “online” lottery to bring it on a par with the “paper” lottery. This was revealed by the Finance Minister, Prof Sampat Singh, while presenting the Budget for 2002-2003 in the Vidhan Sabha here today.
The Budget, the third in a row presented by Mr Sampat Singh for the INLD government, otherwise left a deficit of Rs 202.20 crore uncovered. It proposes no other tax on common citizens. However, he cleverly made his intentions to increase various levies during the year clear when he said that it was necessary to target non-productive expenditure and high establishment costs and also to “discard the notion of free public services”. Indeed, it is a long journey for the INLD from the days of promised free electricity!
Prof Sampat Singh said the current financial year opened with a deficit of Rs 295.36 crore and was likely to close with a deficit of Rs 487.06 crore, a net deficit of Rs 191.70 crore. The coming financial year would open with a deficit of Rs 487.06 crore and was likely to close with a deficit of Rs 689.26 crore, a net deficit of Rs 202.20 crore. He expected to cover the deficit by way of increased share in Central devolution, by taking measures to augment revenue and inherent buoyancy in the state’s economy.
He said the current year’s Plan outlay had been revised to Rs 1838.68 crore from the original Rs 2,150 crore due to resource constraints, primarily caused by a marked decline in the Central devolution to the state and an increase in non-Plan expenditure under various heads.
Prof Sampat Singh announced a state Plan outlay of Rs 1922.50 crore for 2002-2003, showing a growth of 4.5 per cent over the revised Plan for the current year.
As an indication of the government’s intention to involve the private sector in infrastructure development, Prof Sampat Singh said a group of reputed consultancy firms had been engaged to help the government in developing a perspective plan and designing a legal and administrative framework for private participation in the development process, especially in infrastructure development.
As part of its exercise to cut establishment costs, he said the government was reviewing the present organisational structures and staffing pattern of the departments in order to rationalise them. Already the government had abolished over 5,400 posts in the past two years. He said new posts were being sanctioned only after a rigorous verification of the need for these posts. The government had already advanced Rs
13.64 crore to certain public sector undertakings to meet the “severance expenditure” of their surplus staff.
Prof Sampat Singh said in order to avail incentives by the Central Government admissible to those states which undertook fiscal corrections, Haryana would strive to increase its revenue base, contain and reduce expenditure on establishment and limit borrowings only to finance capital expenditure and investment in priority areas.
He said revenue receipts in 2002-03 were likely to increase by Rs 1002.33 crore from Rs 7922.78 crore in the revised estimates for 2001-02 to Rs 8925.11 crore. The revenue expenditure for 2002-03 was estimated to be Rs 9981.34 crore. It would be Rs 888.08 crore more than Rs 9093.26 crore for 2001-02. The increase in expenditure, he said, would be mainly due to an increase of Rs 82.86 crore in salaries, an increase of Rs 289.02 crore in interest payments, Rs 104.35 crore towards financial support to the power sector and due to the allocation of Rs 127 crore for decentralised planning and Rs 170 crore for the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan.
Prof Sampat Singh said the revenue account showed some improvement. The revenue deficit in 2002-03 was likely to reduce by Rs 114.25 crore to Rs 1056.23 crore from Rs 1170.48 crore in 2001-02.
He said while projecting receipts and expenditure for 2002-03 he had followed the guidelines of the Planning Commission and had assumed the state’s share in the Central taxes as per the indications of the Union Finance Ministry. The state taxes were expected to grow at the rate of 11.5 per cent. A provision of Rs 107.38 crore had been made in the Budget estimates for giving two DA instalments, due in January and July, 2002.
Reviewing the state’s performance during the Ninth Five Year Plan, which ends this year, Prof Sampat Singh said Haryana had set itself a financial target of Rs 11,600 crore for the Plan period of 1997-02. However, the overall recession reduced the devolutions from the Central Government. The collection of state taxes was also affected during the prohibition period. The pay revision in 1998 also led to a significant increase in expenditure on salaries. As a result of these developments, the total revised Plan target came down to Rs 8638.68 crore. Haryana would achieve a total Plan expenditure of Rs 8052.31 crore, which was 93.2 per cent of the revised estimates.
Against this backdrop, he said, the Haryana Government had proposed an outlay of Rs 11,250 crore for the 10th Plan period.
During last year, the state economy grew at the rate of 6 per cent at constant prices (1993-94) with the gross state domestic product (GSDP) rising from Rs 31,045 crore in 1999-2000 to Rs 32,921 crore. In 2000-01, the primary sector (agriculture) grew at a rate of 1.7 per cent, the secondary sector (industry) at 5.2 per cent and the tertiary sector (services and trade) at 10.7 per cent. The contribution of the primary sector to the GSDP was 33 per cent in 2000-01 as compared to 42.5 per cent in 1993-94. Like wise the contribution of the secondary sector increased from 26.2 per cent in 1993-94 to 28.1 per cent in 2001-02. During the corresponding period the contribution of the tertiary sector had increased to 38.9 per cent against 31.3 per cent during 1993-94. Asserting that these figures showed that the growth of the state’s economy was moving in the right direction, Prof Sampat Singh said the per capita income increased to Rs 14,331 in 2000-01 from Rs 13,709 in 1999-2000.
While the Finance Minister has made a higher allocation for primary education, he has cut the budgetary support to secondary and higher education. The Budget estimates for primary education were fixed at Rs 56.35 crore against Rs 46 crore last year. The outlay of Rs 98 crore for secondary education last year has now been reduced to Rs 31.20 crore.
Similarly, the outlay for higher education has been reduced from Rs 15 crore to Rs 9 crore.
