AIADMK govt presents interim budget ahead of assembly polls, projects 2.02 pc growth in current fiscal
Synopsis
While the main opposition DMK and its allies, including the Congress and the Indian Union Muslim League, boycotted the budget presentation by staging a walkout, leader of the opposition M K Stalin, in a statement, condemned the government for Rs 5.70 lakh crore debt.
On the whole, the government incurred an expenditure of Rs 13,352.85 crore on the pandemic response.
Ahead of the assembly elections likely in April, the AIADMK government in Tamil Nadu on Tuesday presented an interim budget for 2021-22 with the COVID-19 pandemic contributing to a higher fiscal deficit of over Rs 84,000 crore. The budget, presented amid a boycott by DMK and its allies, projected a positive growth rate of 2.02 per cent in 2020-21 as it expressed hopes of the economy rebounding due to various sustainable policy decisions of the government.
The growth was led by State excise duties, which increased 31.3% to ₹750.78 crore
Tamil Nadu’s Own Tax Revenue increased 11.4% to ₹9,526.38 crore in November 2020 from ₹8,549.43 crore in the same period of 2019, according to the provisional figures from the Comptroller and Auditor-General (CAG).
In a sign of recovery, the State has posted a double digit growth for the second straight month in its own tax revenue. In October 2020, the State’s Own Tax Revenue (SOTR) increased about 18.8% to ₹9,475.16 crore from ₹7,976.53 in the comparable period last year.
70% of the total
The SOTR comes from stamp duty and registration, value-added tax on petrol and diesel, excise duty on liquor, motor vehicle tax and States Goods and Services Tax. The SOTR accounts for 70% of Tamil Nadu’s total revenue.