Kerala budget 2019 Highlights: One of the major highlights of the budget will be a comprehensive universal primary health care programme aimed at covering 50 per cent of the population.
Kerala Finance Minister TM Thomas Isaac presented the state budget for the 2019-20 fiscal year today in the assembly.
On Wednesday, in an exclusive interview with indianexpress.com, Isaac described the fiscal situation of Kerala as bad. He underlined that the economic impact of the devastating floods last year coupled with poor implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and internal leakages in the collection of VAT has affected the state’s fiscal health.
“We are still 13-15% behind the projected revenue. Our whole mean fiscal policy was premised upon a 20% growth on GST. Kerala being a consumer state, that was naturally our expectation. More than that, during the previous governments from 2006-14, VAT was growing at 18-19% pa. Now it’s very slow primarily because of internal leakages,” he said.
He said it will be suicidal for the government not to go for an expansive budget as it has the responsibility to get the economy ticking again by spending more.
One of the major highlights of the budget will be a comprehensive universal primary health care programme aimed at covering 50 per cent of the population. This will be notwithstanding the Ayushman Bharat health insurance program of the Centre that Kerala has agreed to adopt.
On Wednesday, in an exclusive interview with indianexpress.com, Isaac described the fiscal situation of Kerala as bad. He underlined that the economic impact of the devastating floods last year coupled with poor implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and internal leakages in the collection of VAT has affected the state’s fiscal health.
“We are still 13-15% behind the projected revenue. Our whole mean fiscal policy was premised upon a 20% growth on GST. Kerala being a consumer state, that was naturally our expectation. More than that, during the previous governments from 2006-14, VAT was growing at 18-19% pa. Now it’s very slow primarily because of internal leakages,” he said.
He said it will be suicidal for the government not to go for an expansive budget as it has the responsibility to get the economy ticking again by spending more.
One of the major highlights of the budget will be a comprehensive universal primary health care programme aimed at covering 50 per cent of the population. This will be notwithstanding the Ayushman Bharat health insurance program of the Centre that Kerala has agreed to adopt.