Maharashtra's Deputy CM and Finance Minister Ajit Pawar while presenting the state's budget this year claimed that Maharashtra will become the first state with a one trillion dollar economy.

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Maha Vikas Aghadi government presented Maharashtra's yearly budget on Friday. With Municipal elections, including BMC elections, around the corner, this was an important budget for the CM Uddhav Thackeray-led government.

Keeping this in mind, no new tax was introduced in the budget. The state's expenditure target rose by 9 percent to Rs 4.9 lakh crore for 2022-23. After two years, the budget projected a revenue deficit of Rs 24,353 crore this year while the state's debt was Rs 6.5 lakh crore.

In the current budget, the state government claimed that Rs 11,000 crore will be spent on health services for the next three years. An outlay of Rs 3,183 crore has been proposed for Public Health and Family Welfare Department for program expenditure.

In order to make traders happy, the state government introduced the Amnesty Scheme 2022 for the Goods and Services Tax. “This Amnesty Scheme will be called Maharashtra Settlement of Arrears of Tax, Interest, Penalty or Late Fee Scheme -2022”, the minister announced in his budget speech.

The scheme is applicable on various taxes levied by the Sales Tax Department before the introduction of the GST Act. This will be effective from April 1, 2022, to September 30, 2022. Under this scheme, arrears of Rs 10,000 or less per year will be waived off. The MVA government said this will benefit small dealers in almost one lakh such cases.

Dealers who have arrears up to Rs. 10 lakh or less will pay a lump sum of 20 percent amount, as a result, medium dealers will benefit in almost two lakh and twenty thousand cases.

The state government also reduced the rate of VAT on natural gas from 13.5 percent to 3 percent.

On the tax concessions front, for those in the construction business, the state government has increased the stipulated time period of the Maharashtra Stamp Act from one year to three years. It has also proposed Stamp Duty exemption on gift deeds without consideration to corporations and institutions under the jurisdiction of state government. Stamp duty on gold-silver delivery order documents imported into the state has also been waived off.

Apart from this, the state government has kept a Rs 100 crore fund for startups. It has also assured to fully replace manual scavenging with technology.

Also, the farmers who have repaid their loans in time will be rewarded with Rs 50,000 incentive under Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Crop Loan Scheme, according to the budget.