India News | Assam Govt Presents Deficit Budget for FY23, Proposes Green Tax on Old Vehicles
Get latest articles and stories on India at LatestLY. The Assam government on Wednesday presented a Rs 600.36 crore deficit budget for the 2022-23 financial year in the assembly and proposed a "green tax" on all old vehicles to discourage people from using them as these are "detrimental" to environment.
Guwahati, Mar 16 (PTI) The Assam government on Wednesday presented a Rs 600.36 crore deficit budget for the 2022-23 financial year in the assembly and proposed a "green tax" on all old vehicles to discourage people from using them as these are "detrimental" to environment.
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Presenting the annual financial statement for the next fiscal, Assam Finance Minister Ajanta Neog also said the government will hike the rates of various services such as licence fees of liquor shops in urban areas, royalty of forest produce and entry tickets in all forests across the state.
She, however, did not mention the quantum of hikes that were proposed for the 2022-23 fiscal (FY23).
"After adding the receipts under public account and contingency fund, the aggregate receipts amount to Rs 2,83,914.78 crore.
"Taking into account the expenditures under public account and contingency fund, the aggregate expenditure for the year is estimated at Rs 2,83,494.64 crore," she said in her budget speech.
She also said, "Thus, the estimated transactions during the year will result in an estimated surplus of Rs 420.14 crore. This, together with the opening deficit of Rs 1,020.50 crore will lead to a budget deficit of Rs 600.36 crore at the end of the year 2022-23," she added.
The state finance minister proposed to levy a green cess to generate 'environmental compensation charges' on users of old vehicles.
"...we would be levying a green tax on the use of old vehicles to discourage people from continuing use of such vehicles as these are detrimental to the environment. Green tax increases the overall well-being of society, by reducing pollution ensuring that the cost of pollution is borne by the polluter," she added.
The government proposed to use the revenue from such tax for implementing measures to tackle air pollution.
Speaking on the excise mop-up, Neog said, "We propose to optimise excise revenue collection with an additional target of Rs 500 crore, totalling Rs 2,500 crore in the financial year 2022-23 through a slew of measures."
The budget for FY23 proposed restructuring of the excise duties for all categories of liquor, upward revision in the licence fees in urban areas and adoption of technology-driven 'track and trace initiative' with strict enforcement to prevent cross border smuggling.
In the forest segment, Neog said: "We are working on bringing another 100 stone and sand 'mahals' into operation, upward revision and rationalisation of royalty rates of forest produce."
She further said upward revision and rationalisation will take place for various entry fees collected by the national parks, wildlife sanctuaries and social forestry parks.
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)