Free electricity, push in social security schemes in Assam
Presenting the last full budget of the maiden BJP-led government in Assam, Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Friday proposed a series of cash incentives to public, including a Rs 10,000 annual sop to 27 lakh poor families and free rice to 58 lakh households ahead of the state assembly elections due next year. Taking a cue from the Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP government in Delhi, Sarma proposed to give free electricity to all the families whose monthly consumption is below 30 units, and free bus rides to women, senior citizens and unemployed youths in the state capital.
He presented a Rs 1,249.50 crore deficit budget for 2020-21 fiscal and announced 50 paise cut in taxes for petrol and diesel along with a three-year agriculture income tax holiday for the tea industry. In his budget speech, Sarma presented all the achievements of the state government in the last four years. The budget for 2020-21, which was uploaded on the Finance Department's official website hours before it was presented in the Assembly, emphasised on tea garden workers, unemployed youths and poor families.
"I stand before this august House today to present my fifth and final budget as finance minister of this government led by Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal...Time has come to make a tectonic shift in the way the fruits of good governance are delivered and poverty alleviation programmes are run. "If the government can guarantee a minimum amount to the poorest of the poor for their health and nutritional needs, then a lot of the fragmented beneficiary oriented schemes can be restructured and subsumed and large scale gains can be passed on to the families," Sarma said.
He proposed a medical and nutritional support of Rs 830 per month to a family, effectively an additional income of Rs 10,000 to the poorhouseholds per annum, under a scheme 'Orunodoi', for which Rs 2,800 crore was allocated. "We intend to cover about 27 lakh of our poor andeconomically backward families and I propose that a fresh selection of the beneficiaries will be made by the Gram Sabha as the Socio Economic Caste Census Data of 2011 is practically outdated," he added.
Allocating Rs 472 crore for the Affordable Nutrition and Nourishment Assistance (ANNA) Yojana, the government announced free rice to allthe beneficiaries under the National Food Security Act, benefiting a total of 57.85 lakh families. In the budget for 2019-20, the government had announced to supply rice free of cost for the tea garden workers that benefitted 6.46 lakhhouseholds so far. Sarma said there is a wide difference in electricity consumption between different classes of the society for operating even the most basic utilities like lights and fans.
"Hence, I would like to propose a scheme to provide free electricity to all households whose monthly electricity consumption is up to 30 units. Currently, 14 lakh families consume electricity up to 30 unitsmonthly," he said. He said this initiative will immediately benefit families belonging to the bottom of the pyramid, including tea garden workers, households living below poverty line and the SC-ST population, and this subsidy will cost Rs 250 crore annually.
He announced to provide Rs 50,000 to two lakh unemployed youths for forming entrepreneurial groups on the lines of women self-help group models in the state and allocated Rs 1,000 crore for the same. Post demonetisation, the Assam government opened bank accounts to 7,21,485 tea garden workers and transferred Rs 5,000 in two equal installments to each across 752 gardens spread over 26 districts, he said. "We will release a third tranche of Rs 3,000. It is my firm belief that this initiative will strengthen our efforts to enhance financial inclusion in the tea garden areas and make them less susceptible to falling into debt traps," Sarma said.
He also increased the wage compensation for regular and temporary female tea workers to Rs 18,000 for nine months for pregnancy from earlier Rs 12,000 for six months. Extending its scheme to provide free books upto Class XII, Sarma announced to give Rs 1,000 to one lakh undergraduate students by March this year, while also including the students from post-graduate level in the next fiscal.
The finance minister proposed a fullwaiver on registration fees for all properties registered in the name of Divyang children, 50 per cent subsidy in vehicle registration in the name of a Divyang and complete free treatments for them. "As a token of recognition for those bravehearts, who fought for our rights and freedom during the Assam Agitation (1979-85), it has been decided to pay ex-gratia amount of Rs 2 lakh to all those bullet injured persons, who were left out in the previous ex-gratia grant distribution ceremony," he added. Sarma allocated Rs 1,500 crore in the budget to increase the state government's stake in Numaligarh Refinery Ltd to 26 per cent from the present 12.35 per cent.
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