Budget Session from March 1: CM BhupeshBaghel may present state budget on March 6

Divya DubeyFebruary 28, 2023

670 1 minute read

Raipur

Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel, who also holds the finance portfolio, may table the state budget in the Chhattisgarh Legislative Assembly on March 6. The budget session will begin from March 1 with address of Governor Bishwabhushan Harichandan. It was said that the session will have 14 sittings and conclude on March 24.

Being the election year budget, state government is said to be presenting a populist budget. Chhattisgarh’s budget 2023 can be more than 1 lakh crore.

People may get basket of gifts in budget 2023. If the officials of the Finance Department are to be believed, this time the government will not impose any new tax on the people, thus it can give a big relief. Apart from this, there can be some relief measures for irregular employees as well. The Chief Minister may make major announcements related to agriculture, education and women welfare and create an environment for new jobs. Farmers will also be taken special care of in this budget because farmers played a major role in the coup in the 2018 assembly elections. Then the government had also waived off the loans of the farmers.

Last time the Chief Minister of the state reached the assembly in the budget session with a suitcase made of cow dung. This time it is discussed that Baghel will present an e-budget. It is quite possible that the Chief Minister will read his budget speech directly from the tablet and the budget information will be given to other members through laptop screen or tablet only. This experiment will happen for the first time in the Chhattisgarh Legislative Assembly.

After separation from Madhya Pradesh, the then Chief Minister Ajit Jogi presented the first budget in 2001 and the size of the budget was Rs 3,500 crore, which, including the supplementary, became Rs 5,705 crore.

For the first time in the year 2014-15, the size of the budget crossed Rs 50 thousand crore. Including the supplement, its total size was Rs54 thousand 710 crore. This was 24 per cent bigger than in 2013-14. When Dr Raman Singh presented the last budget of his government in 2018, its size had reached Rs 83 thousand 179 crore. In 2019, Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghelpresented his first budget of more than 90 thousand crore rupees. In 2022-23, its size has become one lakh four thousand crore rupees.