OUR CORRESPONDENT KOKRAJHAR:
Bodoland Territorial Council Budget for BTR: The chief of BTR (Bodoland Territorial Region), Pramod Boro on Friday presented a Budget of Rs 602.36 crore for the session of 2021-22 on the first day of the session of Bodoland Territorial Council Legislative Assembly (BTCLA).
Placed under the under the 'State Own Priority Development' (SOPD), the estimated receipt and expenditure of the normal budget of BTC for the year 2021-22 is Rs 3,222.47 crore and Rs 3,310.67 crore respectively with Rs 88.19 crore deficits.
The departments of Education, PWD and Health have been given the maximum priority in the Budget with Rs. 86.50 crore, Rs. 75.80 crore and Rs. 56.10 crore respectively. The other departments like Agriculture, Irrigation, Forest and P&RD have also been given special emphasis in the Budget.
The Budget includes Rs. 37.99 crore for the renovation and maintenance of the two Bodoland Guest Houses in Guwahati, two in New Delhi, and one each in Kokrajhar, Kolkata, and Siliguri including construction works of the Bodoland Houses in Bengaluru, Chennai and Diphu (Karbi Anglong).
The Budget of 2021-22 also has provision for the payment of Rs 4 lakh to the next kin of each person who had lost their lives during the Bodoland movement, including the victimised families.
To improve the infrastructure in the Higher Education sector, the government has earmarked Rs 15 crore for the Bodoland University and Rs 5 crore for the Bineswar Brahma Engineering College.
The government has also decided to introduce a new financial system as the 'United Fund', besides the Chief Xohay Fund, Chief's Peace Initiative, Bodoland Innovation and Transformation Agency (BITA) and the Goodwill Projects.
In his Budget speech, Boro said that 42 projects were approved and completed under the Rs 500 crore package.
Moreover, additional packages of Rs 250 crore for 23 projects were approved for implementation. Of these, 15 projects have been completed while the rest are in progress.
Pramod Boro also said that efforts have been undertaken to bring about all-round development of the Council with steps like compression of non-essential expenditure, close monitoring of various departmental schemes and programmes, prioritisation of public expenditure and most crucially, strict enforcement of financial discipline to accelerate peace and development and creation of transparency in the administrative machinery of the Council.
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