PRE-POLL LOLLIES

GEARING UP | Fuel sop for middle class, rest for farmers, women

- Kalpesh Mhamunkar

With assembly elections likely to be held in October, the state budget for 2024-’25 presented on Friday was meant to please every voter demographic in the state.

Maharashtra Finance Minister Ajit Pawar presented a budget with provisions for women, farmers, youth, students, and religious minorities. An annual outlay of Rs 46,000 crore to pay women a monthly allowance of Rs 1,500 was one of the biggest announcements in the budget. For farmers, there was the promise of free electricity for agricultural pumps and subsidies were announced for milk producers. Poor households will get three free cylinders of cooking gas annually. Stipends for youths undergoing industrial training and reduction in penalty for short payments of stamp duty were other announcements.

FUEL CHEAPER: For the urban middle-class, there is a pre-election sop in reduction in taxes on diesel and petrol. With this, petrol and diesel are expected to become cheaper by about 65 paise per litre and Rs 2.07 per litre, respectively.

There were no major announcements in the health, education, and infrastructure sectors.

Pawar’s budget has proposed Rs 6,12,293 crore in expenditure for 2024-’25. The proposed revenue receipts are Rs 4,99,463 crore and the revenue expenditure is Rs 5,19,514 crore. The revenue deficit is estimated at Rs 20,051 crore.