After giving a final touch to Himachal CM Budget, worshiping at Kalibari temple in Shimla last evening
Himachal Chief Minister Sukhwinder Sukhu will present his third budget today. It will be discussed after tables in the House. It will be passed on 26 March. It is possible that the size of this budget will be around 60 thousand crores.
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The concern is that the more budget size is, the debt has almost been debt on the double Himachal. Because of this, every child born, including every person of the state, is getting a loan of Rs 1.17 lakh. Due to this, Himachal has come second in the states that take loans per capita loan in the country after Arunachal Pradesh.
First budget of 80.18 crore in 1970
Himachal State Act passed in Parliament on December 1970. According to this, Himachal Pradesh became the 18th state of the country on 25 January 1971. After getting full state status, then in FY 1971-72, the first budget of the state was presented for Rs 80.18 crore.
In the 52nd year of Himachal formation, the size of this budget increased to 58 thousand 444 crores, but in current financial year, actual expenditure increased to 17 thousand crores. For this reason, the government has passed the supplementary budget on March 11. That is, the budget has increased by more than 700 percent.
1 lakh thousand Himachal buried under debt of crores
The small state Himachal has a debt of more than 1 lakh crore rupees. Employee-pensioner worth about 10 thousand crore rupees is outstanding. Due to “income of income and expenses rupees”, the debt burden on the state is increasing.
The Congress government has taken more than 30 thousand crore loans in about 25 months. The situation is so bad that the loan has to be taken to repay the old debt. However, in May 2023, the Center has reduced Himachal’s loan limit from 5 percent to 3.5 percent. By doing this, Himachal will be able to take about 5500 crores less loan every year. This is a major setback for Himachal, who drinks ghee by taking loans.
Trouble increased due to the shock of the center
Apart from the loan limit, the Center has given more shocks to Himachal. The central government discontinued the GST reimbursement amount in June 2022, which the central government was giving every year after implementing GST in the country.
The GTS reimbursement amount has been closed by the state about 3000 crores from the Center every year. Secondly, the amount of loan repayment has increased to about 5300 crores annually.
A bigger shock is by the Revenue Defisit Grant (RDG). In fact, by 2020-21, Himachal was getting RDG of more than 10 thousand crores from the Center, which will be reduced to 3257 crores in 2025-26.
Difficulties increased due to giving new pay scale
The former BJP government gave the benefits of sixth pay scale to employees and pensioners in December 2021. But did not give an arrear of pension and salary from January 2016. An installment of arrears was given to the employees, but about 10 thousand crore rupees are owed to the government of employees and pensioners.
Currently, about 17 thousand crore rupees and about 10 thousand crore rupees are being spent on pension.
Of 100 rupees Spending on 26 salary
More than 73 percent of the budget, pension, repayment of banks and interest of the amount received from the center under various schemes from the Center and the amount received from the Center through various mediums is being spent. About 26 percent of the budget is saved for development work.
In simple words, out of every 100 rupees, 26 rupees salary, Rs 17 on pension, Rs 11 interest, Rs 10 loan, 9 rupees on an autonomous body and about 26 rupees out of 100 were being spent on development work and other activities.
In the budget to be presented today, the budget for development work may be further reduced, because the economy is under pressure from new pay scale and pension.