Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Mar 21: Finance Minister Dr Haseeb Drabu will present maiden budget of 21 days old PDP-BJP Government in the Legislature tomorrow with tough road ahead for the Government in view of shattered economy of the State due to devastating September 2014 floods and various other factors including less own resources and slow flow of funds from the Centre this fiscal.
This will also be first budget of Drabu, who had taken over the charge of the Finance Ministry only 18 days back but decided to go ahead with presentation of full budget instead of taking Vote-on-Account.
The budget will be presented simultaneously in both Houses of Legislature at 12 noon tomorrow.
All six budgets of previous NC-Congress coalition Government presented by then Finance Minister Abdul Rahim Rather and six budgets presented prior to him by PDP leaders Muzaffar Hussain Baig and Tariq Hamid Qarra during PDP-Congress regime were zero deficit.
Official sources said the budget could spell out the roadmap for development and employment and present financial position of Jammu and Kashmir, which hasn’t been able to even release 17 per cent pending DA of employees and pensioners for 2014.
Few days back, Drabu had met Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley seeking healthy funding for Jammu and Kashmir for next financial year
The budget could project an amount the Government would seek under Annual Plan, Centrally Sponsored Schemes and other resources for next financial year.
Meanwhile, the Government has started a pilot project to webcast the budget session live. The initiative is a joint effort of Finance Department and IT Department. It is the first time in the history of J&K that such an IT initiative has been taken.
The budget session will be telecast live on the website of Finance Department http://jakfinance.nic.in and the recording will be available in the archives.
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