Punjab: Assembly passes vote-on-account of Rs 37,120 crore for first quarter

According to the vote-on-account, the state’s debt has been pegged at Rs 5,442 crore, and Rs 4,788.20 crore will be incurred on interest payments. An amount of Rs 2,356 crore has been earmarked for agriculture sector, Rs 4,643 crore for education, sports, art and culture, Rs 1,340 crore for health and family welfare, Rs 1,097 crore for power sector, Rs 748 crore for water resources, and Rs 644 crore on industry.

Cheema also presented supplementary demands for grants of expenditure of the state government for 2021-22.

Later, talking to reporters here, Cheema said there will be reduction in expenditure and there will be an effective collection of non-tax revenue. He further said that all the proposals related to poll promises will be incorporated in the budget after three months.

Meanwhile, according to key fiscal indicators for April-September 2021 in comparison to indicators of the corresponding period of 2020, the state’s revenue receipts increased by Rs 1,492.64 crore, showing an increase of 4.84 per cent.

However, the grants-in-aid from the Centre decreased by Rs 4,449.71 crore, a drop of 31.35 per cent.
The state’s own tax revenue showed positive growth of 49.92 per cent over the corresponding period. The state’s tax revenue was Rs 16,356 crore during the April-September 2021 period.

The state’s goods and service tax collection rose by Rs 2,486.15 crore or 53.16 per cent while value added tax collection rose by Rs 1,438.03 crore, indicating 64.26 per cent rise. Excise collection also went up by Rs 469.77 crore.