Chandigarh, Mar 24: Punjab government has decided to increase "user charges" for various services, including drinking and irrigation water, sewerage, higher education, medical education and technical education "with a view to vastly improving delivery and quality of these services." Presenting the Rs 682.60 crore deficit budget in the assembly today, Finance Minister Lal Singh also announced concession in some taxes, including sales tax and entertainment tax, and restored LTC to employees from next month. The concessions would result in a net revenue loss of Rs 90 crore. The deficit and the revenue loss would be made up by compressing non-productive expenditure and improving tax and non-tax revenues through better administration, the finance minister said. He said the size of the annual plan for 2003-04 has been fixed at Rs 3200 crore as compared with current year's plan of Rs 2793 crore. Due to financial constraints faced by the state, the actual expenditure is likely to be Rs 2428.03 crore, which reflects a plan performance of 86.93 per cent, Lal Singh added.
Bureau Report