The Assam government will be presenting its budget for the fiscal year 2024-25 on February 12 during the Budget Session of the Assam legislative assembly. This will be the fourth budget under Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma's administration.
The Budget Session of the state assembly is set to commence on February 5. Assam Finance Minister Ajanta Neog has vowed that this budget will be "realistic".
Ajanta Neog was quoted by ANI as saying, "This will be my fourth budget. I am going to place the budget in the floor of the house on February 12. My first priority is to place a realistic budget. This is an important aspect that whenever place a budget the expenditure should be 100 percent."
"From my three years experience we have seen that our expenditure is upto sometimes it is near about 80 percent. This year we are going to try a new formula that if we place a realistic budget then the expenditure will be more," the Assam finance minister said.
She further said, "First, we have prepared a realistic budget. We are trying to make such a budget where every sector will be reflected. We will try to give benefits to the women, youths and as a whole we will try to make it as in place of expenditure also, increase of public expenditure, capital expenditure in case of infrastructure development."
The Assam Finance Minister had presented the budget last year with an aggregate expenditure approximately around Rs 3.21 lakh crore for the year.
Ajanta Neog had announced that Assam's GDP estimates will rise to Rs 5.5 lakh crore in 2023-24 from Rs 3.93 lakh crore in 2021-22. She had further proposed the implementation of a scheme to promote microentrepreneurs for the creation of self-employment opportunities among the unemployed youths belonging to the below poverty line (BPL) families and low-income households.
The scheme is called the 'Mukhya Mantri Sva-Niyojan Mission' aimed at creating self-employment opportunities.
Under the initiative, the total investment will be Rs 5,000 crores over the next three years, with the potential of transforming over two lakh unemployed youths into job creators.
