HYDERABAD: The State government is likely to cut down the allocations to departments, except those dealing with welfare and irrigation, in the budget to be presented in the Assembly on July 24. The State set a record of sorts last year when it presented a budget of little over Rs. 1 lakh crore with a plan expenditure of over Rs. 43,000 crore.

K. Balchand

NEW DELHI: The 2009-10 budget could see the integration of agricultural activities and rural development schemes not only because they helped to prevent the global slowdown from hitting the rural economy but also because the two sectors appear more likely to lift the country out of the rut.

Entertainment tax on Direct-to-Home (DTH) television connections is the only new tax proposed in the Rs 53.76 crore surplus Budget for 2009-10 presented in the Gujarat Legislative Assembly on Tuesday.

Rs 3,500-Cr Support Package Likely To Be Announced Independent Of The Budget

THE government is readying a package of concessions worth around Rs 3,500 crore for the plantation sector as it looks to lift it out of a morass of rising input costs, a high debt burden and falling productivity levels.

Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, who is also holding the Finance portfolio, today presented the Budget for the 2009-10 fiscal with a closing deficit of Rs 4615.11 crore. However, the Budget presented by Gogoi has proposed a number of sops for the industrial sector, particularly for the small scale and medium scale industries.

Sapna Dogra Singh / New Delhi June 26, 2009, 1:09 IST

The government

IN ORDER to increase lending to the primary sector and to boost rural sector demand against the background of uncertain monsoons and consequent apprehensions over flagging economic growth, the Centre is under pressure to increase interest subvention on short-term crop loans to farmers in the coming Budget from the current 3% to 5-6%.

New Delhi: With only a few days to go for the Budget session of the Lok Sabha to begin, parliamentary affairs minister Pawan Kumar Bansal is scheduled to meet top officials of government departments and ministries on Thursday to draw up a list of bills to be introduced in the session.

The Centre is unlikely to offer further funding to States on the Accelerated Irrigation Benefits Programme (AIBP) unless the State authorities briefed the Union Water Resource Ministry on the progress so far on the scheme.

It would take eight more years before Yamuna can be cleaned, declared Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit on the floor of the House of Delhi Assembly during the Budget session on Tuesday. The Chief Minister said there is no magic wand to clean Yamuna by 2010 Commonwealth Games.