West Bengal’s Minister for Industry, Commerce and Enterprise Partha Chatterjee presented a INR 3.08 Lakh Crore budget for the FY 2021-22. Partha Chatterjee presented the budget as Finance Minister Amit Mitra is unwell.
- The budget announced 26 schemes & projects. It also announced the waiver of road tax on passenger transport vehicles and provided a refund on stamp duty.
- The budget also extends the one-time exemption of motor vehicle tax for the period starting July 1, 2021 to December 31, 2021. It has proposed to reduce stamp duty by 2% for registration of deeds, while the circle rate was slashed by 10%.
Fiscal Indicators
- Revenue Expenditure – INR 2.13 Lakh Crore
- Debt to GSDP ratio (Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) – 35.54% (Central Govt’s Debt to GDP ratio is 58.8%).
- West Bengal’s GDP – 1.2% (while India’s GDP was (-) 7.7%)
- Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) – INR 13, 54,518 crores.
Major Allocations
Agriculture – INR 9,125 crore
Agriculture Marketing – INR 391.93 crore
Food and Supplies – INR 12,293.17 crore
Key Points
i.Under the Student Credit Card Scheme which was launched on June 30, 2021, the Interest rate of 4% will be charged as a part of subvention, while the rest will be borne by the state government.
- No collateral required for availing the scheme, and the loan amount will be fully insured and state guaranteed.
ii.The Government is set to launch West Bengal basic income scheme ‘Lakshmir Bhandar’ to support a woman member of every household.
- Under the scheme, INR 1000 will be rolled out to women of SC/ST households and INR 500 to those belonging to the general category.
iii.The State Government’s ‘Duare Ration’ scheme under which food grains are delivered to doorsteps, will be scaled up in the future.
Recent Related News:
On February 5, 2021, West Bengal Chief Minister (CM) Mamata Banerjee presented the state’s annual budget worth Rs 2,99,688 crore (net) for FY2022 stating an increase of 17.21% over 2020.
About West Bengal
Chief Minister – Mamata Banerjee
Capital – Kolkata
Governor – Jagdeep Dhankhar
