Maharashtra budget focusses on farmers

MUMBAI: The maiden budget of the Uddhav Thackeray-led coalition government presented in the state legislature on Friday put farmers in focus, promising something for all amid the economic slowdown. The announcements were made in deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar’s speech.

Pawar (who heads the state finance department) tabled the budget worth ~4.34 lakh crore with a revenue deficit of ~9,510 crore in the state assembly. The state’s debt is estimated to touch ~5.20 lakh crore by March 2021, with the state borrowing additional ~56,728 crore this fiscal.

While no new levies proposed, the budget has proposed a hike in diesel and petrol prices by ~1 per litre to create a Green Fund. This, Pawar said, will mop up resources worth ~1,800 crore, and will be used only for green initiatives.

The finance minister slashed the stamp duty on real estate purchases by 1% in cities like Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur and Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) as a special case for two years.

The budget expanded the scope of the Mahatma Jyotirao Phule Loan waiver scheme to deliver on its promise to free farmers of debt. The scheme has been expanded to include a one-time settlement scheme for farmers with outstanding dues of more than ~2 lakh and ~50,000 as incentive for those who repaid their loans on time. For this year, Pawar allocated ~7,000 crore for this scheme, while the supplementary budget presented in this session itself for 2019-20 had provided another ~15,000 crore under this head.

Besides the loan waiver, farmers have been promised a new solar pump scheme that aims at setting up 5,00,000 pumps in the next five years.