Chief minister Prithviraj Chavan and deputy chief minister and finance minister Ajit Pawar are going to Delhi on Thursday to discuss the Maharashtra plan size with the ministry of finance and planning.
The state government is going to put forward a proposal of Rs45,000 crore before the Centre to enable higher allocations for the social sectors.
Chief minister Prithviraj Chavan and deputy chief minister and finance minister Ajit Pawar are going to Delhi on Thursday to discuss the Maharashtra plan size with the ministry of finance and planning. Using his good offices with the Centre, Chavan wants to extract higher plan size for state.
Both Chavan and Pawar will hold the meeting with union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee. Confident of Centre’s higher allocations the state government has already tailored a Rs41,500 crore budget for 2011-12. Now, it hopes to build a case to justify the higher plan size.
For the past two days the chief minister held review meetings with the officials in the department of finance and planning to ascertain the budgetary requirements in key sectors.
Sources in the government said, “The state would plead its case for more than Rs45,000 crore plan size. We only hope the Centre considers the major challenges related to infrastructure and agriculture in the state.”
With Rs2.81 lakh crore debt on the one hand and growing administrative expenditure accounting for almost 50% of the total budget, it is a tightrope walk for the chief minister.
Insiders indicated that there is not a single department which is content with the state budget allocations. The finance ministry has
received proposal from every department seeking higher
allocations.
After considering the requirements in the home ministry which has to upgrade its police force to combat terrorism, the state government enhanced its plan size from Rs303 crore to Rs505 crore. This is for the first time probably the home ministry plan size was increased by 60%.
The biggest concern now for the chief minister is to find an amicable way to cope up with the financial mess in the Maharashtra State Co-operative Bank.
Notwithstanding the Reserve Bank of India decision to dissolve the board of directors, the greater challenge is to sustain the rural economy without disrupting the loan disbursements to the farmers ahead of the kharif season.
Sources indicated Chavan may raise this issue with finance minister to find out if they could avail of Rs1,200 crore as Central package.
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