By Our Reporter
SHILLONG: The Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar who is also the State’s Finance Minister, Sushil Kumar Modi, was amongst the first finance ministers of an Indian state to announce a pre-budget exercise in January this year. Meghalaya might be the second state to launch such a programme.
Chief Minister Dr Mukul Sangma had recently announced that a pre-budget exercise would be held at Tura and Shillong in the interest of transparency and public involvement in governance.
The pre-Budget exercise would be conducted on February 14 at Tura and February 17 at Shillong.
Associate Professor of Economics, NEHU, Dr Sumarbin Umdor welcomed the move and said people think that budget exercises are only meant for experts but now we have the opportunity to demystify the this whole thing.
“People should know the fiscal position of the State, its borrowings, interest payments etc. Ideally, since there are several stakeholders involved in the exercise the Government should have come up with a white paper and put it in the public domain,” Umdor said.
Umdor also stated that when people are involved in budget exercises they will know the areas of revenue leakages, pointing out that Excise is one major revenue stream. He said in Bihar the Government has decided to permit wholesale of liquor to prevent revenue leakage.
“Value Added Tax and Sales Tax are also revenue generators but we have to see how much compliance there is. We are getting a lot of money from the Centre for centrally sponsored schemes so we need to track how this money is spent,” Umdor added.
Professor of Economics, IIM Shillong, NW Kharkongor also supported the Government’s idea to bring different stakeholders together and discussed the issue.
“I feel this is a good initiative as we can identify those areas where we had gone wrong in the past,” Professor Kharkongor said, adding this exercise will help the state to identify areas where more funding is needed like industrial and agricultural sector. She also stated that gender budgeting is important for empowering women.
President ICARE Toki Blah also supported the Government’s idea to conduct a pre-budget exercise but stated that Government should have a pre-determined vision otherwise there may be too many divergent views.
Supporting the pre budget exercise, he, however, believed that the exercise could have been conducted for a longer period of time in order to get more meaningful views of the different stakeholders. The former KSU leader Hamlet Dohling also appreciated the Government’s idea to conduct pre-budget exercise.
“The idea is a good one but Government should ensure that the views and suggestions of the public are incorporated in the final budget, adding this exercise will help the Government to implement the various schemes in a proper manner which will benefit common people.”
However the Government’s proposed initiative to conduct the pre-Budget exercise in the State has received a mixed response from different sections of the people
Leader of the Opposition Conrad Sangma while speaking on the issue questioned the Government’s move to conduct a pre-budget exercise only for a day.
“A one-day pre-budget exercise is meaningless. If they have to conduct a pre-Budget dialogue they should conduct it properly,” Sangma added.
The Government is contemplating to call IIM Shillong and North Eastern Hill University (NEHU), ICAR and other institutions including the District Councils, academicians NGOs and civil society activist for taking their views on the preparation of the State budget.
This unique exercise would allow participation of all stakeholders so that their suggestions on investments strategies, tourism, industries and other key sectors of the economy find place in the budget. A pre-budget exercise also helps the State to match its spending to its resource base.