The Bhagwant Mann Government, on Monday, presented its first budget for 2022-23 with an outlay of Rs 1.55 lakh crore and announced no new taxes have been imposed.

A key pre-poll promise of 300 units of free electricity for every household in the state will be fulfilled from 1 July, Finance Minister Harpal Singh Cheema assured while presenting the budget in the state Assembly, three months after the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) came to power by winning the Punjab Assembly elections.

Cheema said the focus in the first year will be on fixing of deteriorating fiscal health, delivering on the promises of good governance and concentrating on health, agriculture and education.

As per the budget, the state government proposes to earn Rs 95,378.28 Crore this fiscal, against an expenditure of Rs 1,55,859.78 Crore, a  revenue deficit of Rs 12553.80 Crore. It proposes to raise market loans to Rs 31804.99 crore. Rs 20,122 crore will be spent on the payment of interest on states loans. The total debt servicing will take Rs 36,068.67 Crore of the state’s earnings.

The finance minister said no new tax has been announced, but the revenue receipts are projected to increase by almost Rs 14,000 Crore over 2021-22. He said revenue augmentation would be through excise policy, which would yield the state a revenue increase of 56 percent.

Cheema said the state’s GST collection will increase by about 27 percent over last year and non-tax revenue will increase by 11 percent. The AAP government also announced to fill 24,400 posts in the government sector and regularise 36,000 contractual employees.

The finance minister said four of the five guarantees given by AAP have been fulfilled in this budget. He said guarantees regarding improving health infrastructure, education infrastructure, 300 units of free power and enhancing compensation given to families of martyred soldiers have been fulfilled. He said now only one guarantee of Rs 1,000 to each adult woman remains to be fulfilled.

The budget also proposed to implement one pension for one MLA. The state government will also come up with the Punjab Young Entrepreneur Programme for start-ups. Under it,  Class 11 students would be encouraged to propose their original business ideas, which would be supported by the government by providing seed money of Rs 2,000 per student.

Cheema said 100 existing schools are proposed to be upgraded as Schools of Eminence. These schools would be composite schools from Pre-Primary to Class XII  and would be equipped with superlative infrastructures like digital classrooms, fully-equipped labs, vocational training facilities and trained faculty.