The Mamata Banerjee government made several major announcements on Monday, presenting the last full-time budget of its second term, ahead of next year's assembly elections in Bengal. On the lines of the Kejriwal government in Delhi, the state government announced to give free electricity to the people in Bengal as well. Presenting the budget for the year 2020-21 in the Vidhan Sabha, Finance Minister Amit Mitra said that those who consume up to 75 units of electricity in three months will no longer have to pay any bill. It is noteworthy that the Kejriwal government in Delhi is giving 200 units of free electricity to the people. In the recently concluded assembly elections, there was a lot of discussion about this plan.
Apart from this, the Bengal government also announced the introduction of the pension scheme for the people of the SC-ST community in the budget. Mitra said that under the scheme called Bandhu Prakalp, the state government will give a pension of 1000 rupees every month to those above 60 years of age from the scheduled caste and scheduled tribe community. However, only those who are not availing any other pension scheme will be able to take advantage of this scheme. The Finance Minister announced a total budget of Rs 2,55,677 crore in the Legislative Assembly on this day. He also announced to build 100 small and medium industrial parks in the state in the next three years. An allocation of Rs 200 crore has been made under this head for 2020-21.
The Bengal government also announced the introduction of a scheme named Jai Jauhar for the tribals in the budget. In this also, one thousand rupees pension will be given every month to those deprived of the benefit of any other pension scheme. In addition, the Mamata government announced waiving of agricultural taxes for tea gardens in the next two financial years 2020-21 and 2021-22. The Finance Minister said that under this scheme called Cha Sundari, the state government will permanently build houses for those working in tea gardens who do not have their own houses. Apart from this, under the Karsamati scheme, one lakh unemployed youth were also given jobs every year.
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