Rajasthan assembly passes ₹86,000 cr vote on account

to have drug testing labs to ensure quality medicines. Gehlot announced these labs will come up in Jaipur, Jodhpur, Udaipur and Bikaner.

The government will bring a new policy to encourage farmers to set up agri food processing units and the existing 8,000 Wifi hotspots at gram panchayats will be increased to 20,000 gram panchayats.

During the discussion on the vote on account budget, deputy leader of opposition in the house Rajendra Rathore said while the chief minister had made several announcements, he had not announced complete loan waiver which the Congress had promised in its manifesto.

Rathore said the centre had introduced changes in the budget process. The earlier planning commission has been replaced by the Niti Aayog which has given financial autonomy to states by doing away with plan and nonplan expenditures.

He said the GST has brough transparency in tax structure and there is a clear share for the states. States get 32-42% share in taxes and of this Rajasthan’s share is 5.5% or ₹46,411 crore.

He said the Congress has said it will bring petrol and diesel under VAT. The VAT on petrol is 26% and on diesel it is 18%. The state gets ₹14,000 crore from VAT and ₹2,000 from cess. If you bring these under VAT there will be a loss of ₹5000 crore. How will you cover that?, he asked.

He said the BJP government had several achievements to its credit. In the ease of doing business, Rajasthan had improved to 6th place. The per capita income under the BJP government was ₹38,300 while under the Congress it was ₹26,227.

Taking a dig at the loan waiver, Rathore said the Congress was unable to say how much loan of how many farmers has been waived. But the centre has announced assistance of ₹6000 per year for farmers that will benefit 58 lakh small and marginal farmers.