A year before West Bengal goes to the polls, State Finance Minister Amit Mitra introduced a new pension scheme for the elderly members of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes, free electricity to the poor and a housing scheme for tea garden workers.
Among the new schemes introduced, the highest allocation of ₹2,500 crore was made for Bandhu Prakalpa for providing ₹1,000 monthly pension to persons from the SC community above 60 years of age not covered in any other pension scheme. Similarly, the allocation for pension to elderly persons of the ST community titled Jai Johar Prakalpa is ₹500 crore. Under Hasir Alo scheme, no electricity tariff will be charged from customers whose quarterly consumption is less than 75 units and an allocation of ₹200 crore has been made for the same. For providing housing to tea garden workers under the Chaa Sundari scheme, the Finance Department has made an allocation of ₹500 crore.
Generating employment
Mr. Mitra also made a provision for provident fund in the unorganised sector for the MSMEs and announced setting up of 100 new MSME parks in the next three years to generate employment. The allocation for the schemes is ₹5,165 crore.
The total budget outlay for 2020-21 was ₹2,55,677 crore. Revised revenue receipts for 2019-2020 were ₹1,63,259 crore, which include State tax revenues, non-tax revenue, State’s share of Union taxes and duties and grants-in-aid. Revenue receipt projections stood at ₹1,79,398 crore.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee described it as a “pro-people budget” and said after implementation of pension schemes, not a single family will be “left behind”. Leader of the Opposition Abdul Mannan said the budget was an attempt to “mislead people and a statistical jugglery”.