Incidentally, Mr Mani holds the records of having presented the maximum number of eleven budgets in the Kerala Legislative Assembly as Finance Minister and also as the longest-serving member of Kerala Assembly.
Advertisement
The monthly pension for all those who are aged 75 and above has been raised to Rs 1,500. He said that his Budget gives more importance to infrastructure development and welfare of the people of the state.
It was after 29 years that a chief minister was presenting the budget.
Former Finance Minister T M Thomas Isaac said here that the UDF Government could not contain the revenue deficit by Rs 9897.45 crore as stated in the state budget.
Mr. Chandy claims to have earmarked Rs. 784 crore for the agriculture sector, of which Rs. 217 crore is from the Centre.
Mr. Chandy in his Budget speech highlighted various achievements, including the Kochi Metro, Kannur airport project during his five years rule. “In the present fiscal this amount was Rs 300 crores”, said Mr Chandy.
The budget proposed an additional resource mobilisation of Rs 112 crore, a major portion of which will come through one-time settlement of cases in the registration department. Chandy had last presented the state budget in 1994.
Advertisement
By the time he finished reading it, Speaker N. Sakthan told the house that the two hour 54 minutes long speech is by far the longest budget speech in the history of the state assembly.
