'No new tax' in Delhi budget with eye on Assembly polls next year

New Delhi, Apr 16 (UNI) The elections to the Delhi Legislative Assembly cast their shadow on the state's budget for 2007-2008 which proposed no new taxes but had a slew of sops for women, students and the elderly.

In a clear attempt to win back public support in the wake of debacles of the Congress in the Uttarakhand and Punjab Assembly polls and, more recently, the MCD polls, the Delhi Budget, presented in the Delhi Assembly by State Finance Minister A K Walia in the Delhi Legislative Assembly today, exempted from VAT common man items like kerosene stoves, lanterns while reducing tax on cutlery items.

The Budget also includes a number of sops for women, students, the elderly and the disabled.

While it provides for increasing monthly pension under the old age pension scheme from Rs 400 to Rs 600, it creates a directorate of women and child development to focus exclusively on all schemes for welfare of women and children.

Further, a number of schemes for the benefit of students have been included in the budget like introducing a scheme to promote higher education among girls by depositing fixed amount of Rs 5,000 in bank accounts of girls students of class 12 in Government schools, exempting girl students from payment of fees for all courses in ITIs and scholarship schemes for students in higher and technical education courses.

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