The West Bengal government’s annual budget for 2006-07, presented by Finance Minister Asim Dasgupta on Friday, was true to the Left Front government’s stated policies, focusing on farmlands and agri-business, IT and higher education. A relatively soft Budget peppered with tax relief for the common man and sops for the business community and government employees, it is ambitiously designed to limit fiscal deficit to just Rs 6 crore. Dasgupta, of course, could not but spend the first quarter of his speech mouthing Left Front rhetoric on the Centre’s policies being guided by the IMF and WTO. While his Budget permitted German retailing giant Metro to enter the state, Dasgupta criticised at length the Centre’s green signal to Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in retail sector. Speaking in a state that, at seven million, boasts one of the country’s highest levels of unemployment, he drew attention to the rising unemployment rate in the country. Dasgupta was also critical of the Centre butting into state matters by pushing for urban land reforms and holding them to ransom with Central funds. Caught in controversies over the transfer of agricultural land for industrial use, the Budget offered several sops to farmers. A provision of Rs 25 crore has been made to buy land by state government even from those owning land within ceiling if they are willing to sell a part of it. The land so acquired is meant to be redistributed “free of cost” among landless agricultural labourers and rural poor, Dasgupta’s Budget stated. The state also proposed a fund of Rs 20 crore for “appropriate” agricultural research universities and research centres, and for improved use of agricultural farm for this purpose, besides investing Rs 5 crore in horticulture. These provisions have sent the agricultural plan outlay up to Rs 84 crore for the current year from Rs 47.79 crore in 2005-06. The tea industry has been given a three-year agricultural income tax holiday from April 1, 2006; and a scheme for settlement of tax dues up to March 31, 2006, is also in the anvil. After trying to turn into the country’s next IT destination, the government this time proposed an additional Rs 12 crore to build venture capital fund in the state, pushing the outlay for IT department up by Rs 30.08 crore, to Rs 47.20 crore. The budget had its share of sops for the business community, too. It proposed a provision to ease and speed up the process of registration for traders — according to the proposal, if registration is not disposed of within 30 days of application, the trader is deemed registered. If items like household linen and incense sticks got VAT exemption, ghee, timber and adhesive slipped from the 12.5-per cent tax bracket to four per cent. The levy on foreign liquor has gone up from 17.5 per cent to 20 per cent. Cigar, imported cigarette and sugar have been moved up from four per cent to 12.5-per cent tax bracket. Stamp duty down KOLKATA: Meeting a long-standing demand from the real estate industry to match rates in Delhi and Mumbai, the West Bengal government on Friday slashed stamp duty in urban areas to 6 per cent and in rural areas to 5 per cent. The earlier levels were over 10 per cent. Finance Minister Asim Dasgupta said collections on account of stamp duty would not be affected in the current year despite the cut, since the number of deals will increase.
