The fundamental purpose of budgeting is to provide a forecast of revenues and expenditures. It constructs a model of how business might perform if certain strategies, events and plans are carried out. It also enables the actual financial operation of the business to be measured against the forecast. All state governments are required to have balanced budgets as these don’t have any mandate on currency regulation. The present coalition government too has presented a budget like its predecessor governments. Well it might not suit all classes and sections of the society yet it has taken care of the majority of the people. If viewed dispassionately this budget has some new elements. The plan outlay for rural development has been raised by 82%. Similarly roads sector gets 51% hike.  The social services have got 45% enhancement and it is for the first time that the agriculture sector outlay has been hiked by 28%. All this reflects the importance the coalition government attaches to the important sectors of our economy. There may be some lacunae in the budget but that doesn’t mean it is the same old thing churned out by Babus without any guidance from the political leadership. The opposition notwithstanding, the budget proposals have certainly been appreciated by a majority of people.  The budget lays thrust on improving agriculture and allied sectors with toll tax and VAT exemption extended to agriculture appliances, fertilizers, fodder etc.  The avowed objective is to increase the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) share of agriculture from 25% to the level of 47% in eighties. This is something unachievable because of a variety of reasons. The political instability and turmoil have already cost us heavily in terms of the highly productive agriculture land getting utilized for non-agriculture purposes. The corrupt bureaucrats and politicians have been extremely insensitive, rather facilitative in allowing monstrous structures like shopping complexes or brick kilns to come up on fertile lands. The example comes from district Budgam where a former district administrative head who allowed scores of brick kilns to come up on paddy lands unscrupulously, yet escaped action by the political government. Same thing has happened in South Kashmir districts of Islamabad and Pulwama. The state needs to increase food security by not only preventing further change of land use of the agricultural land but also by promoting production and productivity of such land by employing new scientific methods. The state needs to encourage farmers to resort to double cropping instead of mono-cropping practices. Another element that could enhance food security is resorting to mixed farming system as that would facilitate better use of crop residues.  Mixed farming shall have to be encouraged by providing facilities like milk chilling plants, free veterinary care and facilities for genetic improvement of their livestock so that the farmers get remunerative prices for their produce and are able to prevent losses. Coming back to the budget 2010-11, asigning150 projects worth Rs. 744 crore to two reputed concerns for evaluation is a very good exercise in bringing greater transparency and accountability in implementation of development programme. The proposed exemption of VAT and Toll tax on Industry and Tourism is definitely going to help these two important sectors of our economy to grow. The revelations made by the Finance Minister that the Centre has agreed to restore five telephone links across LoC for making the trade transactions smoother and simpler should augur well for the cross-LoC trade. The Award of the Thirteenth Finance Commission works out to Rs. 40,439 crore which is almost double of Rs.20,880 crore made available to us by the previous Commission; this is going to have a positive bearing on the state’s finances. The award is going to help the state to reduce its overdraft from J&K Bank by Rs 1000 crores. This would in turn help in reducing the amount going in to debt servicing. The amount thus saved could go into development. The amount earmarked exclusively for women Development Corporation and 25% exemption in stamp duty on properties sold to women are aimed at women empowerment. On the whole the budget is pro people in outlook. There are some important elements in it that are going to have a far reaching impact as far as the development of the state is concerned.

Lastupdate on : Sun, 14 Mar 2010 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sun, 14 Mar 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Mon, 15 Mar 2010 00:00:00 IST