Comments
A sharp 33 per cent increase in State tax revenue during the current fiscal has helped the West Bengal Government to reduce the State fiscal deficit from a previously estimated 6.2 per cent (of the gross state domestic product) to 3.9 per cent.
Presenting the ‘vote-on-account' budget of West Bengal for the first four months of fiscal 2011-12, the State Finance Minister, Dr Asim Dasgupta, said that the higher tax revenue had kept the borrowings Rs 6,000 crore less than the previously estimated levels, during 2010-11. The accumulated borrowings of the state now stand at Rs. 1.86 lakh crore.
The revised revenue deficit stands at 3.1 per cent lower than the previously estimated 5.4 per cent. Debt to GSDP ratio stands at 40.4 per cent as against 41.9 per cent.
The higher tax revenue was credited to introduction of electronbic returns and electronic cross cheking in VAT (value added tax) collection; introduction of e-governance in stamp duty and registration fee collection and; introduction of ad-valorem system in state excise.
The total budgetary deficit for 2010-11 is pegged at Rs. 3 crore. Rate of growth GSDP is estimated to be 8.3 per cent.
West Bengal Legislative Assembly has enacted the Fiscal Responsibility and Budgetary Management (FRMB) legislation, during the last budgetary session held in 2010.
Industrial Investment
According to the finance minister, “despite obstacles” ( in the process of land acquisition and industrialisation), the level of materialised industrial investment in the state has gone up by 77 per cent to Rs. 15052 crore in 2010.
The investments are made in a total of 322 units, mostly in iron and steel, food processing, chemicals, petrochemicals and others. The direct employment “potential” from these units is pegged at 31,270.
The total materialised investment during the last decade has reached Rs. 65,685 crore in 2531 units.
According to the minister, the ‘Land Bank' scheme introduced in 2008 is gaining momentum and has already made available over 8,000 acres to the investors.
IT growth
IT related exports in the state in the last five years (2006-10) has seen an increase from Rs 2,700 crore in 2006 to Rs 6500 in 2010 while employment generated by the sector too has gone up from 32000 to 1,05,000 during this period.
Moreover, even during the years of economic slowdown (2009-10), the IT sector in Bengal had posted six per cent growth in exports.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.