Dehradun: A meeting was held with the officials regarding financial austerity under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami in the Secretariat. During this, CM Dhami directed all the departments to work on new methods and strategies to increase revenue collection. The CM said that along with further improvement in the tax collection process, strict steps should be taken regularly to prevent tax evasion. It should be ensured that the general public gets full benefit of all the works related to development and public interest. Along with frugality in the works, special attention should also be paid to quality, because strong financial management is the basic mantra of the state government.
The CM appreciated the efforts made to increase revenue in the mining sector, as this year the mining sector has increased by 70 percent in the first half as compared to last year, which is 52 percent of the total annual target. CM Dhami said that more efforts are needed to increase revenue in other sectors including SGST, transport, excise, forestry and energy. He said that strong law and order increases investment, economic activities and tax and non-tax income of the state. Similarly, policy intervention can also increase the income of the state and ensure frugality. The CM directed the officials to ensure that the impact of the new policies made by the state government and the policies which have been amended are clearly visible on the economy of Uttarakhand.
Instructions to work under holistic approach
CM Dhami said that for the successful implementation of policies, work should be done with a holistic approach. Frugality does not mean that we compromise with the concept of welfare state. Our strategy will be that we can do public welfare works in a better way. He said that to do ambitious projects and public welfare works, it is necessary that we increase the resources of the state. Analyze the cost and benefit of big projects properly. To be economical, productivity has to be improved, unnecessary expenditure has to be cut, and resources have to be used properly.
The state’s GSDP has increased by 1.3 times in the last 20 months. The per capita income of the state has increased by 26 percent in two years. In 2021-22, the per capita income was Rs 2 lakh 5 thousand. In 2023-24, it has increased to Rs 2 lakh 60 thousand. In the financial year 2023-24, the state has increased capital works by 34 percent. For the first time, capital works worth more than Rs 10 thousand crore were done in the state. In the financial year 2023-24, the state’s tax revenue has increased by 12.52 percent. This year a target of 16.96 percent growth has been set.
In the meeting, efforts being made to increase state revenue resources, trend of committed and non-committed expenditure, availability of adequate resources for important schemes, better use of fiscal resources and other points were discussed. In the meeting, e-monitoring of the work of capital projects from preparing DPR to completing the project, use of e-governance and digital monitoring of revenue sources, use of paperless method for providing records, documents and services and promotion of e-vehicles were also discussed. Chief Minister Dhami directed that schemes in which the central share and state share are in the ratio of 90 and 10 respectively should be given more priority. Instructions were also given to expedite public works funded by NABARD. Uttarakhand:
