Deficit budget tabled in Arunachal with focus on agriculture & health

Itanagar: Arunachal Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Chowna Mein on Wednesday presented a Rs 731.40 crore deficit budget for 2020-21 fiscal, with major thrusts on agriculture and allied sectors, health, women empowerment and infrastructure development.

The focus of the government will be on increasing capital expenditure to create assets for overall development, said Mein who holds the planning and finance portfolio.

He said the government in the budget estimates projected revenue receipts of Rs 20,594.59 crore and capital receipts of Rs 1,385.71 crore making the total receipts Rs 21,980.30 crore, as against the total receipts of Rs 18,726.24 crore in revised estimates of 2019-20.

The government has set three goals for development of agriculture and allied sectors intensive agriculture for achieving high growth by raising productivity; horizontal and vertical expansion of cropping system by

focusing on small and marginal farmers and women, besides sustainability of agriculture with crop diversification including livestock and fishery development.

"A provision of Rs 30 crore has been kept for doubling farmers' income by 2022.... Moreover, Chief Minister's Krishi Puraskar Yojana has been planned," Mein said.

In the health sector, the government seeks to attain the highest possible level of health and well being for the people.

"We aim to achieve this by increasing access, improving quality and lowering the cost of healthcare delivery," the deputy CM said.

While existing healthcare schemes will continue, cancer screening facilities at Papum Pare, East Siang and Tirap districts would be made available on Public-Private Partnership model, he said.

On empowerment of women and curbing of drug abuse in the state, Mein said budgetary provisions have been made for health and hygiene scheme for girl students, reservation of 33 per cent of women in all skill development programmes and creche facilities in all state directorates.

The fiscal deficit, which is 2.44 per cent of Gross State Domestic Product, is within the 3.25 per cent of GSDP for fiscal deficit targets as per the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) Act, Mein said.

He said the estimated GSDP for 2020-21 as per the interim report of the 15th Finance Commission is pegged at Rs 29,974 crore.