By Firstdespatch Desk Mar 27, 2023
Agartala, Mar 27 (FD) Tripura Finance Minister Pranajit Singha Roy Monday said state government proposed Rs. 9066.56 crore as vote on accounts to ensure smooth and uninterrupted development works in the state for next four months till the full fledged budget for the new financial year is tabled and claimed his government is expecting to see 8.95 percent Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) growth in the next financial year.
He explained that the first session of the 13th state assembly started on March 24 with tabling of supplementary grants of Rs. 3065.37 crores as per custom to adjust additional expenditure incurred in the last financial year above the budget estimates of Rs. 26.892.67 crores.
However, since the new government was sworn in barely 19 days ago, till the full fledged budget is prepared and table in the House, the government has proposed vote on accounts of Rs. 9066.56 crores for the next four months, Roy explained.
"We have placed the vote on accounts to ensure uninterrupted development works in next four months till July. We shall prepare the full fledged by next three months and placed before the assembly", he said.
The finance minister added that the estimates for Vote on Accounts were prepared calculating four months equivalent of the last budget estimate and by adding Rs. 100 crore additional funds with it.
He said while Tripura saw 8.80 percent GSDP growth in 2022-23, higher than 7 percent national Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth in same timeframe, the state government is expecting to see 8.95 percent Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) growth in the next financial year.
The state had 14.67 percent own tax revenue growth accounting higher realization and new revenue generation sectors in the last financial year with a cumulative own tax revenue of Rs. 2060 crores.
Tripura is expecting to rise the own tax revenue to Rs. 3000 crores.
On the supplementary grants front, Rural Development saw the highest increase in terms of actual funds as the revised estimates had Rs. 984.07 crore growth over the budget estimates with a 45 percent increase.
However, in terms of percentage of fund hike, Skill Development comes first with 911 percent increase from Rs. 1.22 crore in the budget estimates to Rs. 12.34 crores in the revised estimates. The election department, power and Information Technology (IT) departments had also major fund hikes in the revised estimates in terms of percentage.
Singha Roy explained that apart from the traditional thrust areas like rural development, power, PWD, social welfare and social education etc, the state government has invested and worked heavily on IT and skill development fronts to match Prime Minister Narendra Modi's focus on digitization and skill development.
Claiming that people don't accept Communist ideology anymore, the Parliamentary Affairs minister said those who are committing "mistake" today, should stand on the ground of reality.
Nath, who was himself a Congress leader for over four decades before he shifted to BJP in 2017, said he has respects for Congress legislators Gopal Chandra Roy and Birajit Sinha and urged them to leave the side of Communists, claiming the latter are "mean minded people".
BJP MLA Jitendra Majumder voiced support for the Governor's speech as well and said allegations of post poll violence raised by CPIM legislative party leader Jitendra Chaudhary were baseless and said violence occured in the Left regime instead.
CPIM, which ruled Tripura for 25 consecutive years till 2018, lost to BJP in 2018 and sat in the opposition but lost the prime opposition status in 2023 polls as well as royal scion Pradyot Kishore-led TIPRA Motha party won 13 seats and became the prime opposition party in the House, leaving Left Front and Congress behind which have 11 and 3 seats respectively. BJP won 32 seats and its alliance partner Indigenous People's Front of Tripura (IPFT) has a single member in the Assembly. FD JK