NOVEMBER 5: The Congress-NCP alliance Government has decided to adopt various austerity measures and henceforth discourage all populist schemes in view of the present poor financial position of the State, Minister for Agriculture and Textile Ranjit Deshmukh has said.Talking to media persons at Tilak Patrakar Bhavan here on Thursday evening, he said Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh has already instructed all Secretaries to furnish the present state of financial affairs of their respective departments within a week. The Chief Minister also enquired about the details of schemes and whether they are viable or not, from respective Secretaries.He blamed the earlier Sena-BJP Government for relaxing taxes in entertainment, excise and other areas which had badly affected the State exchequer. ``We will also review it and ensure that the Government should get maximum revenues from these sources,'' he said and disclosed that the Government will review the present financial condition in a meeting on November 11 next at Mumbai.Criticising the saffron alliance, he said that the State Cotton Cooperative Marketing Federation was facing a financial crisis due to ``wrong policies'' of the earlier Government. There were an accumulated loss of Rs 1,800-crore in the federation, he claimed.Despite this, the State Government has decided to increase the minimum guarantee price of raw cotton from Rs 2,100 to Rs 2,300 per quintal under the Monopoly Cotton Procurement Scheme, from this season.The federation will pay Rs 2,100 to cotton growers as first installment within a week after buying their raw cotton while the rest of the amount would be paid by April next. The two-installment payment arrangement was made in view of the present poor financial condition.``It was our demand to pay at least Rs 2,500 per quintal to cotton growers. However, presently we are not able to pay the amount due to the on-going financial crisis and hence are offering Rs 2,300 only to cotton growers,'' he sought to clarify.On free electricity to farmers, he made it clear that the Congress was not in favour of such popular slogan. The State Government has been providing around Rs 900 crore subsidy through power to agriculture sector, he pointed out.Answering a question, Deshmukh, who is also holding the textile portfolio, asserted that the coalition government was committed to the monopoly scheme and ensure that it would continue despite the scheme being a loss-making venture. The new coalition Government would now provide Rs 2,000 per hectare to farmers whose land damages were over 50 per cent due to natural calamity. The Government earlier used to provide Rs 1,000 per hectare for such cases.
