Gujarat Govt projects Rs 692 crore budget surplus for 2004-05

State finance minister Vajubhai Vala on Friday presented the Vote-on-Account for the interim period April 1-July 31, 2004 with budget estimates for the financial year 2004-2005 indicating an overall surplus of Rs 692 crore.

No new items under plan and non-plan have been included in the Vote-on-Account, and these will be considered at the time of presenting the modified Budget.

The estimate for revenue receipts was placed at Rs 20,398.17 crore while that for revenue expenditure has been pegged at Rs 23,418.77 crore, thus bringing the deficit in the revenue account to Rs 3,020.60 crore.

Vala said the estimated capital receipts for the next fiscal have been put at Rs 9525.32 crore while capital expenditure, including loans and advances, has been put at Rs 6,226.18 crore. Thus the surplus on the capital account will be Rs 3,299.14 crore.

"With a net consolidated fund of Rs 278.54 crore and net public accounts of Rs 414 crore, the overall surplus Budget estimate for the next fiscal will be Rs 692.54 crore," Vala said. "The government intends to bring down the revenue deficit further during the next fiscal."

The revised revenue deficit estimates for the year 2003-04 have been put at Rs 3,461.60 crore, while the original revenue deficit for the present fiscal was Rs 5317.39 crore.

Vala said that the government, in the year 2004-05, intends to bring the revenue deficit lower to Rs 3020 crore.

Listing down the goals that have been achieved, the finance minister said that piped natural gas is presently being supplied to nine villages and a township having around 8,000 houses will come up at Hazira near Surat.

Val said the 2,200 km gas grid project covering the entire state was in progress.

"Already over 360 km of the grid has been laid out,", he said. Vala added that the government has recently decided to reduce the rate of sales tax on natural gas from 20 per cent to 12 per cent.

Its implementation will be linked to the commencement of the supply of LNG, and an increased supply of LNG will provide a boost to the economy and will also open up capital investment in the energy sector, the finance minister said.

"The Jyoti Gram Yojana of the government, aimed at providing round-the-clock single-phase electricity to villages, is on schedule and the infrastructure has already been created for electricity supply to 1,021 villages," the minister said. "Within a short time, 2,500 villages will be covered under the Jyoti Gram Yojana."