The Finance Minister of Tripura, Pranajit Singha Roy, presented a tax-free budget of Rs 27804.67 crore for the 2024-25 fiscal year in the Assembly on Friday resulting in a deficit of Rs 410.69 crore. During the budget speech, the Finance Minister stated that the state’s economy is projected to grow at about 8.37% in the 2023-24 fiscal year, with an estimated GSDP of 8.47% for the 2024-25 fiscal year.
According to the Budget statements, the Receipt and Expenditure stand at Rs 27393.98 crore and Rs 27804.67 crore respectively.
State’s Own Tax Revenue is projected as Rs 3748 crore and non Tax revenue is expected to be Rs 455 crore. The Capital expenditure is projected at Rs 6633.80 crore with an increase of 23.80% over 2023-24 BE.
Three core sectors – Education, Agri & allied sectors and Health sector – have received substantial allocations. Roy proposed Rs 5508.63 crore for the Education sector which is 11.54% higher the 2023-24 BE. For the Agri & allied sector, the finance Minister hiked allocation to Rs 1721.94 higher by 19.88% 2023-24 BE. The Budget has allocated over Rs 1726.23 crore for Health sector.
The Finance Minister proposed an allocation of Rs 2000.00 crore over the period of the next four years will be spent for road infra works covering all 60 Assembly constituencies for new construction or renovation of 30 km road in each of the Assembly constituency.
Roy said the State Government is giving emphasis on sanitation. A new demand has been opened for 2024-25 exclusively for sanitation and Rs 139.96 crore is earmarked for this purpose.
The volume of trade between Tripura and Bangladesh has increased substantially from Rs 390.68 crore in 2017-18 to Rs Rs 758.09 crore in 2022-23. The value of exports from Tripura to Bangladesh has gone uyp to Rs 121.37 crore in 2023-24.
Earlier, the Finance Minister tabled a demand in the Assembly for Rs 1632 crore 62 lakh supplementary expenditure.
