Madhya Pradesh Budget | Polls in sight, focus on women, jobs and tribal welfare; no new taxes

Madhya Pradesh Finance Minister Jagdish Devda presents the State Budget 2023-24 in the Assembly, in Bhopal on Wednesday, March 1, 2023. Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan is also seen.
| Photo Credit: PTI

The Shivraj Singh Chouhan government in Madhya Pradesh has kept its last Budget of the outgoing Assembly a youth-and women-centric one, by announcing 1,00,000 government jobs and allocating significant funds for social welfare schemes such as the newly announced Ladli Behna Yojana.

Under the CM Ladli Behna scheme announced earlier this year, the government will provide a ₹1,000 allowance every month to women who are aged between 23 and 60 years, and come from the financially weaker strata of society. With an estimated beneficiary count of nearly one crore women, the government expects it to be a game changer in an election year, and has allocated ₹8,000 crore for the same.

The scheme comes in the long line of other pre-existing women-oriented schemes such as the Laadli Lakshmi Scheme, Prasuta Sahayata Yojana and Kanya Vivah-Nikah Yojana and Gaon Ki Beti Yojana.

“The welfare of women has been our priority. Therefore, a provision has been made in which ₹1,02,976 crore will be spent on women’s welfare in various schemes,” said Mr. Chouhan, after Finance Minister Jagdish Devda presented the Budget on Wednesday. This amount corners nearly a third of the total Budget of ₹3.20 lakh crore.

As a further incentive, electric two-wheelers will be provided by the State government to any girl who gets the first position in Class 12 in a government school, under a new scheme titled Mukhyamantri Balika Scooty Yojana.

At ₹36,950 crore, the amount earmarked for the Scheduled Tribe sub-plan has been revised upwards by more than one third (37%) compared to 2022-23. Mr. Chouhan’s BJP government— that has been aggressively trying to woo over the ST constituency for the past couple of years— has also announced separate Tribes Cell to monitor and evaluate schemes meant for the community. For the Scheduled Caste sub-plan, ₹26,087 have been allocated.

While Mr. Devda mentioned in his Budget speech that a campaign has been started to recruit over one lakh people in government jobs, Mr. Chouhan said that a provision of ₹1,000 crore for the Chief Minister Skill Apprenticeship Scheme in the Budget will benefit another one lakh youth. “Along with this, adequate provision has been made in the Mukhyamantri Yuva Udyam Kranti Yojana for self-employment. Sant Ravidas Global Skill Park is being set up in Bhopal to upgrade the skills of the youth,” he said.

“Farewell Budget”

With an eye on the youth, the Budget for sports has been more than doubled. The Budget for education (₹38,375 crore) is ₹5,532 crore more than the last year.

The proposed spending on infrastructure has gone up by 15% compared to the last fiscal, said Mr. Devda, adding that ₹53,964 crore have been allocated for agriculture and related sectors.

The Budget has a revenue surplus of ₹412.76 crore and the fiscal deficit is estimated at 4.02% of the Gross State Domestic Product.

“The estimated revenue receipts are ₹2,25,709.90 crore, which include the State’s own tax amount of ₹86,499.98 crore, State’s share of Central taxes of ₹80,183.67 crore, non-tax revenue of ₹14,913.10 crore and grants-in-aid received from the Centre of ₹44,113.15 crore,” said Mr. Devda.

The Opposition meanwhile, said the Budget was disappointing, with former Chief Minister Kamal Nath calling it a “ vidai ka budget” or a “farewell Budget” for Mr. Chouhan’s government. Former Chief Minister Kamal Nath also questioned the implementation of Budget provisions from previous years, adding that only 55% of the amount for budgetary provisions for last year was distributed. Opposition members also staged a walk out over the hike in gas prices announced by the Centre while Mr. Devda was reading out his Budget speech.