Supplementary grants for Ladakh to be moved
Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Mar 16: The Central Government will present annual budget for the financial year of 2020-21 of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir in Lok Sabha tomorrow. Simultaneously, the Government will also present supplementary grants for the current fiscal year of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh in the Lower House.
Official sources told the Excelsior that annual budget of Jammu and Kashmir Union Territory will be presented in the Lok Sabha after the Question Hour. The budget will have effect from April 1, 2020 to March 31, 2021.
The Jammu and Kashmir annual budget was required to be presented and approved by the Parliament as currently there was no Legislature in the Union Territory in the absence of elections to the Legislative Assembly.
The Central Government will also present supplementary demands for grants in respect of the State (erstwhile) of Jammu and Kashmir for the year 2019-20 from April 1, 2019 to October 30, 2019. Further, the demands for grants in respect of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir for the year 2019-20 from October 31, 2019 to Marh 31, 2020 will be taken up.
Separate demands from April 1, 2019 to October 30, 2019 and October 31, 2019 to March 31, 2020, were necessitated as during first seven months of current financial year, Jammu and Kashmir was a State while it became the Union Territory on October 31 (along with Ladakh) and therefore demands for grants for five months of this fiscal year will be taken up separately.
The demands for grants for current financial year will be followed by annual budget of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir for the year 2020-21 from April 1, 2020 to March 31, 2021.
The Central Government will separately move discussion and voting on demands for grants for the Union Territory of Ladakh for the year 2019-20 from October 31, 2019 to March 31, 2020.
Ladakh became the Union Territory on October 31, 2019.
For the past several years, there had been practice in Jammu and Kashmir to pass annual budget in the month of January in the Legislature giving ample time to the Government Departments and the District Development Commissioners to work on the projects and other works to be taken up in the financial year.
However, according to sources, development works won’t suffer even as the budget is being passed in the month of March this year since the administration especially the Finance Department was already on the job to identify developmental works, projects etc to be taken up in the next financial year.
For the first time, they said, annual budget of Jammu and Kashmir was set to cross the figure of Rs one lakh crore and could be around Rs 1.2 lakh crore, which will be sufficient enough as Ladakh, the third region of erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir, has been separated and made a new Union Territory.
As far as the current financial year is concerned, sources said there has been no problem in funding and release of funds and bills in the treasuries were being cleared expeditiously. Earlier, some problems used to crop up at the fag end of financial year but this year entire system is working smoothly and flow of cash is as per requirements.
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