World, India: With the Tamil Nadu Assembly elections due in May this year, the AIADMK Government today presented an interim budget for 2006-07, proposing no fresh taxes, thus leaving an uncovered revenue deficit of Rs 207.27 crores.

This is the Jayalalithaa Government's third successive budget that did not contain any proposal to levy new taxes. Finance Minister C Ponnaiyan, who presented the interim budget in the State Assembly this evening, said the total revenue expenditure for 2006-07 was projected at Rs 34,253.56 crores as against a total revenue receipt of Rs 34,046.29 crores, leaving a small uncovered gap of Rs 207.27 crores as revenue deficit.

The overall deficit at the end of the financial year 2006-07 had been estimated at Rs 5.57 crores. However, the fiscal deficit for the year was projected at Rs 5,570.14 crores, which constituted 2.35 per cent of the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP), he said, adding that the overall deficit projected in the interim budget estimates would be handled through effective and prudent management of public finances.

Ponnaiyan said the people of the state were witness to the determined efforts made by Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, in planning and implementing a comprehensive social safety net, which had protected the poor and the deprived from the rigours of extreme droughts and floods. A record provision of Rs 8,117.51 crores had been in the interim budget for this social safety net, he pointed out.

Source: TIS

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