Puducherry CM announces monthly LPG subsidy of Rs 300

The Puducherry government on Monday announced a Rs 300 monthly LPG subsidy for the people of the union territory, earmarking Rs 126 crore for the scheme.

Chief Minister N Rangasamy made the announcement in the UT budget presented for the year 2023-24. Rangasamy, who detailed the achievements of various departments said the government had earmarked Rs 126 crore for implementing the scheme to provide the subsidy of Rs 300 for all families for one cylinder a month.

He presented a Rs 11,600 crore tax free budget. The LPG subsidy initiative would benefit all families possessing family ration cards. The CM said the government would also hold a "World Tamil Conference" here with the participation of Tamil scholars from various countries.

A national conference would also be conducted as a highlight of celebration of the 150th birth anniversary of Sri Aurobindo "to propagate his thoughts, philosophy, research on yoga and literature."

Further, the government would deposit Rs 50,000 under fixed deposit scheme in a nationalised bank for a term of 18 years under the new scheme of "Chief Minister's girl child protection scheme".

He said that to provide jobs for the youth it had been proposed to provide subsidy of one percent for enterprises starting industries with an investment of more than Rs 100 crore.

This subsidy would be available on land, machinery and building every year for a period of five years from the date of establishment of industries.

The budget size of Puducherry for the fiscal 2023-2024 has been fixed at Rs 11,600 crore of which the UT's own resources is Rs 6,154.54 crore, Central assistance including Disaster Relief Funds is Rs 3,117.77 crore and Rs 620 crore under centrally sponsored schemes.

He said the remaining Rs 1,707.69 crore would be mobilised through open market borrowings and loans from Central financial institutions. Rangasamy said that the territorial government had introduced special budgeting components namely gender budgeting, youth budgeting as per Central guidance.

"A major portion of our financial resources goes to meet the committed expenditure such as salaries, pension, repayment of loans and interest payment," he said. Meanwhile, Lt Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan welcomed the CM's announcements on LPG subsidy and assistance to girl children.