The Gujarat government on Thursday presented a ₹2,43,965-crore annual budget, with largest outlay for education, a number of populist announcements for farmers, tribals and fishermen and provisions for cow protection as well as tackling the menace of stray cattle.
The budget estimated an overall surplus of ₹560.09 crore.
The State will be going for the Assembly polls later this year in December and hence the government has avoided imposing any new taxes.
Finance Minister Kanubhai Desai, who presented his first budget, announced free WiFi connections in 4,000 villages, power subsidy for farmers and ₹734 crore for free electricity for water works in village panchayats.
The budget allotted the highest ₹34,884 crore to the education sector, followed by ₹15,568 crore to the energy and petrochemicals department, ₹14,297 crore to urban development, ₹12,240 crore to health and family welfare and ₹12,024 crore to the road and building department.
3 medical colleges
It also made provisions for setting up three new medical colleges and hospitals, five seafood parks and an international, ₹400-crore ceramic park at ceramic industry hub Morbi in the Saurashtra region. A textiles park will be set up in south Gujarat.
According to the Finance Minister, Gujarat’s gross domestic product had risen from ₹1.25 lakh crore in 2001, when Narendra Modi took over as Chief Minister, to over ₹20 lakh crore in the past two decades.
He added that the State was expected to register an impressive double-digit GSDP growth of 13% despite the adverse impact of COVID-19 that had badly hit the economic activities.
Gujarat’s per capita income stood at ₹2,14,809.
To tackle malnutrition, a new scheme has been launched with a budgetary outlay of ₹4,000 crore for five years to provide proteins, fats and micro nutrients in the diets of pregnant women and lactating mothers.
Under the scheme, it is proposed to give monthly supply of one kg toovar dal, two kg gram and one kg edible oil free of cost for 1,000 days.
