No new tax in Haryana CM Manohar Lal Khattar’s Rs 1.83 lakh crore budget

CHANDIGARH: Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Thursday presented a budget of around Rs 1.83 lakh crores, the largest in the state’s history.
Khattar, who also holds the finance portfolio, tabled the budget with the total size of Rs 1,83,950 crores, an increase of 11.6% over the budget estimates of Rs 1,64,808 crores during the last fiscal year. He also said that the growth rate of the state in 2022-23 was estimated at 7.1 percent.
With the 2024 parliamentary polls due a year later, no new tax proposal has been announced in the state budget. Khattar also announced an increase of Rs 250 per month to the old age pension, raising it to Rs 2,750 per month. Even the income eligibility for old age pension has been increased from Rs 2 lakh to Rs 3 lakh.
In another populist announcement, Khattar said his government would recruit at least 65,000 in 2023-24 for Group C and Group D posts. The announcement aimed at the youth would address the issue of the high rate of unemployment in the state.
Giving ‘prominence’ to the agriculture and allied sector, the budget proposed the highest allocation of Rs 8,316 crore for these sectors, an increase of 19% compared to last year’s allocation.
Presenting the budget for the fourth time in a row, Khattar also announced financial and social security cover for certain categories of people and a housing scheme to woo the state government employees. As per the budget document, one lakh houses would be built in 2023-24 in addition to the existing benefits of Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna (PMAY). Stating that the budget aimed to build a “resilient and resurgent” Haryana, Khattar announced allocation of Rs 1,442 crore for the industry sector, an increase of 88.25 percent. In 2021, the state government announced a scheme to grant a 10% rebate on the price of industrial plots allotted by HSIIDC to encourage entrepreneurship amongst the scheduled castes, which has now been increased to 20% for micro and small industries proposed to be established by SC entrepreneurs.
The BJP-led coalition government also proposed a massive 10-time increase in the budget of “Haryana Gau Sewa Aayog” for the protection of cows, from allocation of Rs 40 crore in 2022-23 to Rs 400 crore in 2023-24.
In his over two-hour speech, the CM also announced the allocation of Rs 101 crore to construct the contentious Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal to get the state's share of water of the Ravi and Beas rivers.
In his speech, Khattar claimed that the rate of growth of the state’s Gross Domestic Product (GSDP) was higher than the country’s Gross Domestic Product. Khattar said that national per capita income at current prices was Rs 86,647 in 2014-15 and this is likely to increase to Rs 1,70,620 in 2022-23. For Harya- na, this increased from Rs 1,47,382 in 2014-15 to Rs 2,96,685 in 2022-23, he added.
Haryana contributes about 3.86 per cent to India's Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which is more than proportionate to its size or population. The GSDP growth rate is estimated to be 7.1% in 2022-23. Haryana’s share in GDP increased from 3.52% in 2014-15 to 3.86% in 2022-23, he said.
An outlay of Rs 57,879 crore, which is 31.5% and Rs 1,26,071 crore, which is 68.5%, have been proposed for the creation of capital assets in the budget.