Assam government on Sunday announced an annual stipend for girls in the State to purchase sanitary napkins and scholarships for those belonging to minority communities, besides a zero-interest crop loan for farmers and debt relief for those unable to replay loans.
Presenting the State’s first e-budget available on Google App, Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said suggestions from citizens via official portals had helped the government prioritise the needs of people and to allocate funds.
The Rs 2,149-crore deficit budget presented in the State Assembly was heavy on schemes for girls and farmers besides allocations and incentives for making the State corruption and foreigners-free.
The budget proposed an annual stipend of Rs 600 to be transferred to bank accounts of 500,000 girls aged 12-20 years and belonging to families with annual income of less than Rs 5-lakh. The block development offices would register the girls for the scheme linked to their date of birth so that it stoped automatically when they reached the age of 20.
“I have earmarked Rs 30-crore for this scheme for ease of access to disposable sanitary napkins and ensuring better hygiene,” Mr Sarma said.
The budget had proposed four slabs of annual scholarship of up to Rs 10,000 for ensuring girls belonging to minority communities pursue education beyond class 10. Eligible girls would need to self-certify that they were unmarried and pursing their education to avail the scholarship that would peg the government back by Rs 250-crore.
The government had also budgeted Rs 25-crore for providing two-wheelers to the top 5,000 girls who passed this year’s higher secondary examination. Rules had been tweaked for allowing unmarried daughters of pensioners, who did not have other sources of income, to continue receiving pension in the event of her parent’s death.
A monthly pension of Rs 250 for “each and every senior citizen of the State irrespective of whether they are above or below the poverty line” was also proposed.
Farm debt relief
Assam’s budget had proposed schemes to offset a farm crisis as experienced elsewhere the country. “The contribution of farmers to the nation’s economy is unparalleled. The needs of the farming community must be given top priority,” Mr Sarma said.
The government had thus proposed measures such as zero-interest crop loans to farmers and financial incentives for farmers using Kisan Credit Cards. Farmers who renewed the card would get one-time cash incentive of Rs 3,000.
The government would also give banks 25% of outstanding dues, subject to a maximum limit of Rs 25,000, in each loan account. Mr Sarma said adding that Rs 500-crore had been allocated for this scheme expected to provide debt relief to farmers.
“We will continue to reward the prompt repaying farmers by extending 4% interest subsidy, so that they get all short-term interest-free crop loans up to Rs 1-lakh,” he said.
Other schemes include Rs 5,000 as financial assistance per farmer for encouraging farm mechanisation.
For tea plantation workers, whom the government said had been “trapped in weekly cash cycle”, the Chah Bagicha Dhan Puraskar Mela was announced. This entailed transferring Rs 2,500 to the bank accounts of 721,485 tea garden workers across 752 estates in 26 districts. The first tranche of Rs 2,500 had been paid in the current fiscal.
The scheme was to insensitivise the digitisation of payment to tea plantation workers who have been receiving wages in cash by the week, Mr Sarma said.
The State Government would also be paying Rs 342 annually for life and accident insurance of the each tea plantation worker. The sum assured was Rs 2 lakh.
GI tag for local liquor
The budget also promised efforts for obtaining geographical indication (GI) tag for “indigenous items that have seldom got their due recognition”.
These included laopani and saaj, two varieties of local liquor made from fermented rice and a variety of exotic rice such as komal saul, joha saul and bora saul.
Komal saul, once proposed for the armed forces, was a kind of soft rice that needed no boiling. It could be consumed after a few minutes of soaking in water. While joha was an aromatic rice, bora was a sticky rice.
Among other items for which GI tag was being pursued were kopou (local orchid), fulaam jaapi (decorative headgear) and endi silk.
The government, Mr Sarma said, had also proposed to develop a world class botanical garden at Kaziranga National Park with an initial budget of Rs 8-crore.
