‘In election year, budget can’t discount politics and debt is not bad if productive’

After presenting his last budget before the state goes to polls, Punjab finance minister Parminder Singh Dhindsa is not defensive about it being an ‘election budget’. Announcing more doles and some tax cuts, he expects to tide over the revenue gap through optimistic revenue projections. In an interview to HT after presenting the budget, Dhindsa dismisses the charges of opposition Congress which has dubbed his budget as full of ‘debt and deceit’, saying the Congress budgets had been pessimistic and his is bullish.

It is clearly an election budget. Do you have a magic wand to implement new schemes with empty coffers?

There is no denying the fact that it is an election year and the political aspect cannot be discounted. The new schemes will cost us only 1,200 crore, which we will get from the

5,000 crore revenue income we have projected for the next year, which too is a conservative estimate. The financial impact of some schemes such as allotment of tubewells and construction of skill development centres will be only halfyearly. Cuts on stamp duty, EDC and CLU will help revive the realty market and boost stamp duty collections.

In your previous budget, haven’t you batted for fiscal prudence and living within one’s means?

We have been living within our means and we are not borrowing beyond that. The borrowings in 2016-17 will be

12,000 crore and within the debt to gross state domestic product (GSDP) target. The successive Congress governments in the state used to overshoot the debt-GSDP ratio targets by several notches above us. Of the additional 5,000 crore we expect to mop us as revenue, just

1,000 crore will go into debt repayment.

Your budget tries to woo rural vote bank by upgrading schools, health centres and smart villages. How will you manage all this?

We will upgrade schools which already have the infrastructure to have additional classes or in villages whose panchayats are ready to pitch in. We intend to start by adding one more class each in every school and it is something that can be achieved in a few months. Same is for health centres. They already exist in villages and we will upgrade them by providing free medicines, partially through the state budget and the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM). Even medical tests at these centres will be provided free of cost. The smart village scheme will be funded under rural and urban renewal programme of the state government.

The budget even aims to woo youth through skill training, something even your past budgets have also announced. For wooing women, you have announced Nanhi Chaan skill centres, already being run by Union minister Harsimrat Badal. So what’s new?

Whether it is Nanhi Chaan scholarships for girls in the earlier budget or the Nanhi Chaan skill centres, the ideology behind the schemes is to empower women. Setting skill development centres for youth is an ongoing process. This budget announces to set up such centres at block level.

The opposition has termed your budget full of debt, deficit and deceit. What’s your reaction?

The only difference between their opinion and mine is that they are pessimistic and we are bullish. That’s why our GSDP has grown many times than that of the Amarinder Singh government. Debt is not bad if productive.

But the CAG reports each year say the debt is going into funding state’s salary, debt servicing and subsidy bills not capital expenditure. What’s your take?

Though our capital outlay through the budget is not very high, nearly 10,000 crore spent through the Punjab Infrastructure Development Board (PIDB) and the rural development fund (RDF) is purely on infrastructure. It cannot be used for meeting subsidy or salary bills. The only difference is that it is not routed through the consolidated fund and the decision to do so is of the cabinet and not of the finance minister.

The budget has targeted vote bank such as youth, women and villages. What about employees who are waiting for DA arrears?

We will clear the arrears of dearness allowance whenever we have the financial space to do so. The matter is under consideration.