Budget session of Arunachal assembly to begin tomorrow

Itanagar, Mar 17 (UNI) The Tenth session of the Fourth Legislative Assembly of Arunachal Pradesh will begin here tomorrow.

Finance and Planning Minister Kalikho Pul is expected to present the budget for 2008-09 during the session.

The inaugural day of the three-day session would be addressed by Governor General (Retd.) J J Singh. It would be followed by presentation of the budget, assembly sources said.

Besides other regular business like obituary references, three important bills would be taken up during the session. These include enhancement of salary and other allowances of ministers, enhancement of salary and other allowances of Speaker and Deputy Speaker and pension provisions for MLAs, the sources added.

The Annual Plan outlay for Arunachal Pradesh for the financial year 2008-09 had been fixed at Rs 1,800 crore, an increase of 480 crores compared to that of 2007-08.

However, if the second installment of the Prime Minister's package for completion of incomplete schemes to the tune of Rs 265 crore is added, which is a normal practice, then this year's annual plan for the state would stand at Rs. 2065 crore.

Chief Minister Dorjee Khandu had recently appealed to the Planning Commission for adequate funds, highlighting that he had taken a number of reform measures to ensure fiscal discipline and reduce unproductive expenditure. He also told the PC that the government had recently taken a decision to transfer most of the plan posts to non plan side in a phased manner for reducing plan expenditure on salary component in order to make available more funds for plan development.

Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Dr Montek Singh Ahluwalia had assured allocation of more funds if Arunachal Pradesh was able to absorb the funds being allocated.

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