President Mahinda Rajapaksa delivered his government’s budget proposals for the year 2014 on November 21 in parliament while the members of the opposition UNP and JVP parties boycotted the speech in protest of the 2013 budget. The President revealed proposed budget allocations for several sectors including agriculture, housing, pensions etc. Among the highlights of the budget speech were, -Government hopes to reduce budget deficit to 3.8% and the government debt by 65% by 2016 -Nation building tax of 2% extended to banks and financial institutions -SLTB will provided with 2,000 new busses at a cost of Rs. 1000 million -Farmers pension scheme will be inaugurated in 2014 January,Rs. 1000 million set aside for it -20,000 dairy cows to be imported -Cess tax to be imposed on butter and yoghurt -Women entrepreneurs up to the age of 68 could get interest free loans up to Rs. 250,000 and concessions -Veterinary Doctors to get Rs. 7,500 allowance per month -Kandy, Galle, Anuradhapura, Jaffna , Ratnapura and Trincomalee cities to be developed on par with Colombo. -No low-income, un-authorized Colombo city dweller will be evicted, but provided proper housing units. -Judges’ personal allowance to be increased by 8% -The allowance of Government sector workers increased by Rs. 1200 from January 2014 -Companies being listed in the stock market from 2014 onwards will be granted a 3 year partial tax holiday Meanwhile, the government also allocated a record 253.9 billion rupees for the defence ministry, which is 16.5% from the total estimated spending of Rs 1,542 billion for the year 2014. However, the budget proposals received criticism from several opposition members for being more focused on tax cuts for high income groups and enterprises and less focused on helping the poorer groups of the public. Also it received criticism for its lack of specific allocations for several sectors and ministries. What are your views on the budget proposals? Do they help public and the nation? - Thanks to Adaderana.
Posted on: Sun, 24 Nov 2013 07:37:40 +0000
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