Presenting a ₹9,000-crore Budget for the fiscal 2020-21, Puducherry Chief Minister V. Narayanasamy on Monday announced that a health insurance scheme would be launched for all ration cardholders and water tariff would be waived for those below the poverty line.
There is no new tax or revision in the existing tax rates in the Budget proposals. Power tariff would be waived for those consuming less than 100 units a month and free e-tablets would be given to Class 10 and 12 students.
Presenting the last Budget of his government in this term, amid a walkout by the AINRC, the AIADMK and nominated legislators belonging to the BJP, the Chief Minister said of the budgetary outlay, ₹5,263 crore would be met through internal resource mobilisation.
Another ₹2,023 crore would be in the form of Central assistance and the remaining ₹1,710 crore would be raised through Open Market Borrowings. To tide over the financial crisis, he said the government had made several appeals to the Centre to include the Union Territory under the ambit of the Finance Commission so that it received higher share in taxes. But the Centre had not conceded the demand.
The government had decided to provide health insurance cover of up to ₹5 lakh to all ration cardholders in the U.T. He said ₹16 crore would be set aside to implement the scheme this year. The decision to waive water tariff for BPL families would help around 1.5 lakh red ration cardholders, he said.
To increase milk production, the Government would provide an incentive of ₹2 a litre to dairy farmers. Breakfast, along with milk would be supplied to children studying in government schools and the scheme would be named after former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi.
The other major proposal included setting up of an engineering college at Yanam, extension of agriculture subsidy scheme and free application forms for higher education courses.
