Union Budget to guide J&K UT’s financial proposals for 2020-21

SAHIL RASGOTRA

JAMMU: Even as the Jammu and Kashmir administration has initiated the process of budget making for the next fiscal in October last year, it is waiting for the announcement of union budget, which will be instrumental in giving final touches to what is going to be maiden budget of the union territory.
The packages, proposals and concessions expected to be announced by union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman for J&K on February 1, will lay down the foundation stone of the budget of J&K which will be announced soon after the union budget.
Some responsible officials concerned with the budget process did not confirm any specific date but assured The News Now that it is happening very ‘soon’, while categorically denying the speculations that UT’s budget might be a part of the union budget.
In the run up to its bifurcation from a full State into two Union Territories, the J&K government had segregated the annual budget for the remaining of this fiscal—till March 2020 for UTs of J&K, and Ladakh from the budget for erstwhile State, while initiating the preparations of the separate proposals for both UTs, for the next annual Budget 2020-21 in the month of September 2019.
Even though Ladakh region has been carved out from the erstwhile State and created into a separate UT, top sources in the administration believe that the budget for year 2020-21 will cross Rs 1 lakh crore mark, this time.
The last five annual budgets were of Rs 88911 Crore, Rs 80313 Crore, Rs 79472 Crore, Rs 64669 Crore and Rs 46473 Crore.
“The constitutional changes affected by Centre to J&K on August 5 were cushioned with the promise of economic development in the region. The upcoming budget is likely to deliver on that assurance and might have focused attention on infrastructure development,” they said.
“With the consistent and significant that the annual budget for erstwhile State has seen over the years, there was high probability that the budget for the next fiscal would breach Rs 1 lakh crore mark. After the August 5 developments, the possibility has only grown stronger,” they added.
However, the speculated figure might not translate into something extraordinary as some peculiar issues with the budget would persist in future as well.
Of the annual budget allocation, around 52-55% gets spent in the salaries, another 10 percent in ‘debt servicing’, while eleven odd percent goes on power tariff and pilferage.
Despite tall claims by some top finance ministers in the past—some of whom called theirs a ‘zero-deficit budget’, the financial planning has lacked critical reforms and it shows as in the end, only 25% to 30% of the budget is used for developmental works.
While its announcement date remains a secret for now, but the annual budget for 2020-21 will be the first budget in last three years, which will be presented later than the month of January of the preceding fiscal.
It may be mentioned here that in the year 2006, then chief minister Ghulam Nabi Azad had started the practice of bringing the annual budget quite early-- in the beginning of January, owing to special geographical and climatic conditions of Jammu and Kashmir.
The practice ensured that the procedural formalities after the budget announcement in January are completed by April 1, when the new fiscal begins, and the snow melts in higher reaches of the State including in Chenab Valley and Kathua district, and Gurez, Karnah, Kupwara in Valley, thus not hampering the developmental works.
The practice was followed by the succeeding government led by Omar Abdullah.
However, the PDP-BJP government led by Mufti Mohammad Syed failed to continue with the practice for first two years, before turning the clock back with 2017-18 and 2018-19 budgets announced in the month of January for those two years.
After the fall of last ruling dispensation, the State Administrative Council (SAC) headed by last Governor Satya Pal Malik had walked the extra mile by approving the 2019-20 budget in the December 2018.