O P Chaudhary presents Chhattisgarh's interim Budget in assembly

Bhopal: Chhattisgarh Finance Minister O P Choudhary presented a interim budget (vote-on-account) for FY 2024-25 of Rs 1,47,500 crores in the assembly amid thumping of tables by treasury benches on Friday. The budget has no reference or proposes to introduce any kind of new taxes this time. Finance Minister OP Chaudhary said that the government's focus is on ‘GYAN’. GYAN abbreviation G- Garib (poor), Y= Yuva (youth), A- Annadata (farmers) and N-Nari (women) will be integrated with mainstream and partners in the economic development of the state, he said.

Chaudhary further added that in the past five years, the Congress government has done injustice to these four groups. The theme of the budget is to lay/build foundation of Amritkaal and a greater Chhattisgarh, he said.

The government has announced preparation of a vision document to transform Chhattisgarh a developed state by 2047 from developing state. The document has been named Amritkaal Chhattisgarh Vision at 2047.

In the first budget of the Vishnu Deo Sai government, an ambitious target has been set to take the state's GDP from Rs 5 lakh crore to Rs 10 lakh crore in the next five years. And to achieve it, 10 Fundamental Strategic Pillars have been proposed as the basic work plan cornerstone.

In December, the BJP government was elected and within a month, Finance Minister O P Chaudhary started hectic parleys, holding meetings with the ministers and officers of different departments to finetune the final budget draft paper. Earlier on Thursday the government presented the Economic Survey on 8th February, According to the survey report, the per capita income of the state was recorded at Rs 1,47,329 annually and the GDP was 6.56 per cent, which is 0.76 per cent less than the country's GDP. While in the Economic Survey presented during the Congress government in 2023, the per capita income was stated to be Rs 1,33,000 annually, while the GDP was reported to be 8 per cent, 1 per cent more than the GDP of the country.

O P Chaudhary accused the previous Congress regime of poor resource management attributive to pushing the state to near bankruptcy. "We will improve it (economic condition) with fiscal prudence and mantra of Modi ji’s guarantee," said Chaudhary, adding, "We will increase income by focusing on technology driven governance and implementing a transparent system."