Srinagar, Oct 7: The Finance Minister Dr Haseeb Drabu Wednesday said from April to September this year Rs 17,008.06 crore has been released to the treasuries of Jammu and Kashmir while Rs 2111.63 crore is pending for payment in these treasuries. The Minister said that Finance Department has not approved the purchase of 110 SUV type vehicles for the Ministers and HoD’s but added that Home Department has been authorized to purchase 100 Mahindra Scorpios-BS4 vehicles (SUV) for legislators for the reason that the existing vehicles have either got severely damaged in the last year floods or are now too old to be economically viable.
The Minister according to CNS was responding to a question raised by legislator Chowdary Qamar Hussain in Legislative Assembly. He said that the State Government has initiated a number of measures to institutionalize the path of fiscal correction and consolidation. “These measures have been introduced both in the processes as well as policy frame work. In the areas of policy, these include measures such as rationalization of tax structure, revision of stamp duty, e-stamping, charging of Guarantee fee, introduction of New Pension Scheme VS/GHS Scheme for loss making PSE’s and reforms in VAT Administration through wide spread usage of e-governance tools for better fiscal management, have been initiated,” he said.
Drabu said that another major step towards Fiscal Consolidation to achieve the fiscal targets prescribed in the FRBM Act was reschedulement of outstanding Block loans (GoI loan) in April 2009 at a uniform and revised interest rate of 7.5% for a period of 20 years effective from 2006-7 onwards resulting in a saving of Rs 115 crore per annum in the interest payment.
He said that the State Government is planning debt restructuring and replacing high cost debt with low cost debt. “Presently, loans from NABARD are being contracted at only 6.25% interest rate. As such we are planning to avail maximum finance through NABARD under Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF). High cost Block Loan is being replaced with loan (Open Market Borrowing-OMB) from RBI on rates of interest which are market driven and favourable to the State Government,” he said. (CNS)
