Tamil Nadu's new Finance Minister PTR Palanivel Thiagarajan presented his maiden state budget on Friday — a revised one for FY’22. For the first time, the state saw a paperless budget as computers were installed on MLAs’ desks.

Share Market Live

NSE

Petrol will be cheaper by Rs 3 per litre in Tamil Nadu as Rajan announced a cut in the state excise duty. The state will incur a loss of Rs 1,160 crore following the duty cut on petrol, the minister said.

Ahead of the Budget, the AIADMK legislators staged a walkout after being denied the chance to speak. The opposition party also accused the DMK of not keeping their election promises to cut fuel prices.

The minister has announced Rs 32,599 crore allocation towards school education that is Rs 1,582 crore lesser than the last year. Around Rs 5,369 crore have been allocated to higher education and it is Rs 316 crore more than the last year.

State highways department got a bumper allocation in the Budget of Rs 17,899 crore. Rajan announced an installed capacity target of 17,970 megawatts over the next decade to offset the 2,500 megawatt power purchase that the state has made so far.

Another big allocation was made to rural housing. Rajan allocated Rs 3,954 crore towards building more homes in the effort to make Tamil Nadu a “hutless state” over the next decade that will house nearly 8 lakh homeless individuals. Over Rs 8,000 crore was allotted to the implementation of food subsidies and Rs 6,600 crore to irrigation-related infrastructure.

The state police department was allotted a little less than Rs 9,000 crore and was promised 14,000 new jobs.

It remains to be seen how these allocations will come about, especially as Tamil Nadu presently bears a debt burden of Rs 5.7 lakh crore. The Finance Minister did announce any additional levies or state duties.

First Published:Aug 13, 2021 2:00 PM IST