Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi on Monday presented a Rs 293.44 crore deficit budget for fiscal 2012-13 which envisages a growth rate of 12.5 per cent with focus on education, health and agriculture sector.
Mr Gogoi, who holds the finance portfolio, proposed concession for tea and hotel sector while reducing the entry tax on import of plant and machinery to the state.
Apart from the proposal of populist schemes, like cycle for BPL girls up to Class 10, Mr Gogoi also proposed to hike pension of freedom fighters to Rs 8,000 a month. Mr Gogoi, who claimed that many states adopted his scheme of free cycle, announced to give free yarn to 10,000 weavers of the state. He also proposed crop loan for farmers at two per cent interest and tractors and power tillers at 50 per cent subsidy besides 5,000 rotary tillers with all accessories at 60 per cent subsidy for women farmers in the state. The government will be spending around Rs 5,000 crores on such schemes during the current financial year.
With the Guwahati Tea Auction Centre facing stiff competition, the government has proposed to reduce the rate of tax on auction sale from the existing one per cent to 0.5 per cent and the rate of tax on sale of tea through private arrangement from existing two per cent to one per cent.