West Bengal's first BJP budget expected to prioritise fiscal recovery and industrial growth

Already, before presenting his first budget, he initiated a new system to make the state excise collection system transparent, corruption-free and higher revenue generating.

The state finance department last week had issued a notification making advance payments of all state excise-related duties mandatory for liquor manufacturers, breweries and bottling plants.

Technically, this means that, henceforth, all such units will have to pay the relevant state excise duties in full before any product is removed from the manufacturing company, brewery, or bottling plant concerned.

The new system had been introduced with the primary aim of sealing avenues of corruption in the collection of state excise and ensuring better revenue collection.

Regarding debt management, the biggest challenge for Dasgupta is putting in place efficient debt management amid the massive accumulated debt burden on the state, which is projected to increase to Rs 8.15 lakh crore by March 31, 2027, as against just Rs 1.99 lakh crore on March 31, 2011, which was the last year of the 34-year Left Front regime in West Bengal.

While economists feel that the only way to address this accumulated debt issue is a combination of higher tax revenue generation and massive curtailment in non-Plan and revenue expenditure, it is to be seen what kind of reforms will Dasgupta announce today on this front.

On the issue of attracting big ticket investments in the state, both for the manufacturing and the services sectors, certain major policy changes as regards to the reforms in the state’s land and Special Economic Zone (SEZ) policies are required to achieve that goal.

According to industry observers, in case of land policy, two major reforms are required. The first is repeal of the existing Urban Land (Ceiling and Regulation) Act, 1976 and the second is to do away with the existing policy that prevents any state role in land acquisition or land procurement for the industry.

This existing policy that prevented any state role in land acquisition or land procurement for the industry, had been a major disincentive for the investors to venture in West Bengal with a highly fragmented land holding structure.

“Amid this policy, the investor was unwilling to come forward with big-ticket investment in the state which required a huge plot of land at one go and take the trouble of negotiating with individual land owners for purchasing of that plot for the proposed industrial unit,” pointed out a city-based industry observer.

On the other hand, the state’s government’s “no Special Economic Zone policy” is a disincentive towards attracting investments in the services sectors, especially Information Technology Enabled Service (ITes) sector.

Now, it is to be seen whether Dasgupta’s maiden budget today addresses these crucial policies or not.

To recall, on February 5 this year, the previous Minister of State for Finance (Independent Charge), Chandrima Bhattacharya, had presented the interim (vote-on-account) budget in the Assembly.

The full budget could not be presented due to the West Bengal Assembly elections, which were then due in April. The results were declared on May 4, following which the new government was sworn in.

"Except for the headline, no changes have been made to the story, as it has been sourced from IANS."