The Mysuru Zilla Panchayat has envisaged an outlay of Rs. 969.96 crore in its budget for 2015-16. This includes Rs. 348.87 crore under the plan component and Rs. 618.57 crore under the non-plan component. The budget was tabled by the ZP president Pushpa Amarnath here on Friday.
The break-up under the plan component includes Rs. 159.08 crore for development works of the zilla panchayat, Rs. 162.25 crore for taluk panchayat works, and Rs. 27.53 crore for gram panchayat works. This year’s outlay is 15.53 per cent higher compared to the outlay of the previous year’s budget.
However, the bulk of the amount will go into meeting the salary component of the government staff. While Rs. 111.49 crore or 31.96 per cent of the plan component will be for meeting staff salary, Rs. 507.78 crore or 81.77 per cent of the non-plan component will be spent on salaries. The total salary component in the budget works out to Rs. 619.35 crore out of which 76 per cent or Rs. 470.72 crore will go to meet the salaries of the Education Department staff alone. The budget has allocated Rs. 69.48 crore for implementing the mid-day meal programmes in government schools in rural areas which will benefit more than 3.28 lakh students.
The allocation for various government schemes, including awarding of scholarships to students, is pegged at Rs. 142.63 crore.
In order to beef up public health infrastructure, the zilla panchayat has earmarked Rs. 32.57 crore under the plan component and Rs. 42.42 crore under the non-plan component.
In order to implement the provisions of the Forest Rights Act, the ZP has earmarked Rs. 10.90 crore under the plan component and Rs. 11.79 crore under the non-plan component. The authorities have received 5,387 applications from the tribal community in the district seeking benefits under the Act. But 4,832 applications have been rejected as the applicants are living outside the forest limits.
Though agriculture receives funding under separate head directly from the State government, the ZP budget has earmarked Rs. 25 lakh towards mechanisation of farming. The funds can be utilised to tide over the severe labour problem confronting the agricultural sector.
