Chandigarh: Punjab Finance Minister
Upinderjit Kaur on Friday said that the state budget for the
financial year 2011-12 is pro-people with all efforts being
made to reach out to the common man.
"The Opposition had never dreamt that the SAD-BJP
alliance would present a budget that had everything in it for
common man," she said while winding up the debate on budget
presented by her on the floor of the House on March
14.
Taking a dig at the Opposition for their decision to
boycott the budget debate, she said "negative approach of
the Opposition is against the spirit of democracy."
"The budget has everything for all sections of the
society, including the deprived class...it is a document
containing pro-people policies of Chief Minister Parkash Singh
Badal-led Akali government in the state," she said.
Rebutting the claims of the Congress that the budget
figures were fudged, she said whatever data has been provided
was authentic.
"Provisions have been made for a lot of investments in
several sectors, including agriculture, education, health and
language," she said.
The state government has decided to pay its employees
arrears related to the Sixth Pay Commission in three
installments adding that it has already paid one installment
of arrears to pensioners and the remaining arrears would be
paid in two separate installments.
She said that the plan expenditure of 2010-11 is
estimated at Rs 8,931 crore as per revised estimates and
proposed annual plan for 2011-12 is Rs 11,500 crore.
"Accumulated debt burden is the result of long years of
militancy in the state and decline in Punjab`s share in
distribution of Central taxes from 2.45 per cent under the
Fifth Finance Commission to 1.339 per cent in 13th Finance
Commission," Kaur said.
She said that the state`s tax revenue which was Rs
9,017 crore in 2006-07 had improved to Rs 12,039 crore in
2009-10 and it is expected to increase to Rs 17,396 crore in
the last fiscal and Rs 20,407 crore in 2011-12.
PTI
