Assam Budget to have ‘green, resilience & innovation’ etch on it

 STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI: Following instructions from Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, the Finance Department is trying to make ‘green, resilience and innovation’ etch largely on the state’s Annual Budget for 2023–24.

According to sources in the Finance Department, with these three features, this annual budget will be the first of its kind in the state, and maybe, first among all state budgets in the country as well.

Green Budget, according to sources in the Finance Department, is taking all environmental concerns into consideration while implementing projects. For instance, a road project involves tree cutting. Under the green budget, the Finance Department and other project implementing departments will have to take into consideration other aspects to implement projects without tree felling.

According to Finance Department sources, they will observe the outcome of the green budget and continue it in the subsequent annual budgets.

On the Resilience Budget, Finance Department sources said that the State Government took a policy decision on the Risk Risk Reduction (DRR) roadmap. The ASDMA (Assam State Disaster Management Authority) issued an official notification regarding the DRR roadmap recently. Under the resilience budget, the government will ensure that every department can do its disaster-related work on its own, instantly, without any additional budgetary allocations. Barring salary and pension, this annual budget will keep three percent of the other departmental allocations for the resilience budget.

The Innovation Budget is in sync with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s stress on innovative research. Under the Innovation Budget, the State Government will provide an allocation in the R&D (Research and Development) head to encourage youth to carry out research.

The Finance Department is issuing guidelines to other departments in this regard to bring awareness to these three aspects of the annual budget. The Finance Department is also holding workshops on ‘green, resilience and innovation’ with other administrative departments of the state.

The Budget session of the State Assembly will start on March 10, and the Finance Minister will table the annual Budget on March 16.

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