Saurabh Patel said this when asked why industry’s demand for cheap power was not met.
Industry’s demand for cheaper electricity could not be fulfilled as the focus of this year’s state budget is on the poor sections of society and on rural areas, said Saurabh Patel, Gujarat minister of state for finance, on Saturday.
“Even otherwise, it is difficult to fulfil the demands of all sections of society,” the minister said. He was speaking at the conference on ‘State Budget 2012 - 13: Financial Insight’, organised in the city by CII.
“Preparing a budget usually takes a long time. This year’s budget was prepared in the last two months. We have focused on the poor sections of society and rural areas,” Patel said. He added that for this reason industry’s demand for cut in electricity duty for commercial and industrial units could not be fulfilled.
“We wanted to give relief to the poor of Gujarat, especially in rural areas. It is difficult to fulfil the demands of all segments. We could not meet the industry’s demand for cut in duty on electricity as industry comes in the upper class of society,” the minister said at the conference.
Patel further said that it was not easy to focus only on rural areas and on the poor sections of society in the budget.
“We can see that, in the long run, coal prices may rise. Freight charges are also likely to go up. In fact, state-run power utility companies in the country are already incurring losses of Rs1,000 crore or more. In the case of Gujarat, we are selling the state’s surplus power to generate revenue for us. When coal prices go up, this revenue will help us in not increasing the duty on electricity,” he said.
Atul Garg, chairman, CII, Gujarat state council, said that financial allocations in the budget had been made to aid areas with a capacity for high development. “The budget will speed up social and infrastructure development so that the necessary momentum in areas with the capacity for high growth could be obtained,” Garg said.
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