West Bengal has witnessed an 8.5 times rise in capital expenditure during the fiscal year 2018-18, compared to 2010-11 under the then Left Front government, state Finance Minister Amit Mitra said today.
"Capital expenditure of the state has reached a record Rs 19,084.70 crore. This is up from last year's Rs 12,028.50 crore which is 59 per cent growth," Mitra told newspersons at the state secretariat today.
He said the total capital expenditure in 2010-11 was Rs 2,225.75 crore.
"So, the total capital expenditure in 2017-18 is 8.5 times as compared to 2010-11," Mitra said.
As per other statistics released by the state finance minister, the plan expenditure of 2017-18 has reached Rs 57,778.60 crore.
"Last financial year, it was Rs 49,609 crore. So, the growth is of 16.5 per cent. Our target was a growth of 11 per cent which we have exceeded," Mitra added.
Referring to the 2010-11 total plan expenditure which was recorded at Rs 11,837,85 crore, the minister said that "the total plan expenditure in 2017-18 is about five times compared 2010-11."
There has been significant increase in the state's own tax collection, he said.
"The tax collection in 2017-18 has gone up to Rs 52,971 crore as compared to Rs 45,647 crore in 2016-17, a gross increase of Rs 7,300 crore," Mitra added.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said the feat was possible because of the consistent monitoring by her government.
All this has been possible due to our consistent and close monitoring and holding more than 400 Administrative Review Meetings and Public Distribution Programmes at state, district and block levels, Banerjee said in a Twitter post.
Banerjee also said that demonetisation and rollout of Goods and Services Tax (GST) failed to affect the performance in the financial sector.
Despite the adverse effects of demonetisation and hasty implementation of GST on the economy, performance of our state in financial sector during 2017-18 has significantly improved due to our focussed and persistent approach, she further wrote on her Twitter handle.
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