West Bengal has registered six-fold increase in capital expenditure in the last five years, marking a departure from "negative growth" during the previous regime, state Finance Minister Amit Mitra said today.
Mitra told the Assembly, which earlier passed vote-on-account of Rs 41,983 crore, that there was a 'negative growth' of 24 per cent in 2010-11.
This, he said, had been reversed in 2015-16 with the capital spend jumping to 39 per cent, which indicated creation of assets.
He said fiscal deficit had shrunk to 2.11 per cent compared to 4.24 per cent when the Left-ruled government ended their term in 2010-11.
Mitra claimed that the revenue deficit had also been drastically reduced in the last five years to 0.42 per cent from 3.75 per cent.
Replying to a question on the swelling debt, Mitra said that the ratio of debt to GDP had been reduced by the incumbent government.
Mitra also said that the government cannot shelve the social programmes of the Centre like Sarva Siksha, ICDS, road, nirmal dhara and housing despite Delhi's having either pruned the fund flow or altogether stopped.
The opposition parties demanded a discussion on the Hyderabad University suicide and JNU, arguing that those were more important than budget discussion, but the Speaker declined.
(REOPEN CCM9)
In addition to the Vote-on-Account, the West Bengal
Appropriation Bill, 2016 was also passed in the House to authorise payment and appropriation of certain sums from and out of the Consolidated Fund of West Bengal for the services and purpose of the year ending on the March 31, 2016.
Mitra said this will help meet the supplementary or additional expenditure charged on the Consolidated Fund of West Bengal.
Under the Constitution of India, no money could be withdrawn from the Consolidated Fund of West Bengal, except in accordance with an appropriation made by law.
