A budget of Rs 3.21 lakh crore for the financial year 2022-23 was presented in the Assembly on Friday by Chandrima Bhattacharya, Minister of State for Finance, Government of West Bengal. During this, the opposition party BJP boycotted the budget and walked out of the house. The Bengal government has projected revenue of Rs 1,98,047 crore for the next fiscal, while the government proposes to raise about Rs 1,14,958 crore through public debt. The government has estimated capital expenditure of Rs 33,144 crore and revenue expenditure of Rs 2,26,326 crore for the next fiscal.
The West Bengal government has given special priority to schemes related to social security in the budget. The Minister of State for Finance said that the funding of all these schemes running in Bengal will be increased. Another 8 lakh women will be brought under the Widow Pension Scheme. So far 1.5 crore women have got the benefit of Laxmi Bhandar Yojana. Along with this, he said that 20 thousand students have been brought under the student credit card scheme.
With this, the government gave relief to the public on many things. In this, exemption from registration and road tax was given for 2 years on battery and CNG operated vehicles. Giving relief to homebuyers, the Mamata Banerjee government has announced to extend the period of 2 per cent exemption on stamp duty and 10 per cent rebate on circle rate on purchase of property and land till September 30. Along with this, the government also claimed to provide 1.20 crore employment opportunities in the next 4 years in this budget.
Earlier, the Mamata Banerjee government of the state has stopped all payments till the budget for the next financial year is approved. Government of West Bengal issued a notification “The Government of West Bengal suspends all payments for March 2022 till the approval of Finance Budget 2022-23.
A week ago, while holding a review meeting with the administration at Netaji Indoor Stadium in Kolkata, Mamata Banerjee had claimed that the central government owes the state about 90 thousand crore rupees, which we have not yet received from the central government.