A budget should evolve as a vision document and not merely stop with crunching of a litany of boring numbers. Chief Minister Oommen Chandy said this while addressing the inaugural of the K. M. Mani Centre for Budget Studies here.
“Framing of a scheme or a project demands availability of correct figures and actual numbers. We cannot have these unless we are able to fall back on studies and research on budgets. It goes without saying that we must be able to produce budget experts and take budget to people,” Chandy said.
The Budget Studies Centre at the Cochin University for Science and Technology (Cusat) will help State with all these.
“The 10 budgets presented by K. M. Mani offer themselves up sa massive resource for research,” the Chief Minister said.
FARMER PENSION
Mani did not merely present annual financial statements of accounts but introduced innovative and imaginative schemes, Chandy said. He was the first to propose Rs 45 pension for farm labourers way back in 1980 and followed it up with the same for farmers in 2011.
“And he is now busy in the ‘war room’ working on his 11{+t}{+h} budget. We’re all waiting to see the next Mani magic,” the Chief Minister said.
QUANTUM LEAP
The first budget of Kerala presented by C. Achutha Menon in 1957 and the last by K. M. Mani in 2012 have played a big role in the State’s evolution as a welfare and modern State.
The first budget had proposed revenues of Rs 2,790 crore, which jumped to Rs 48,120 crore 55 years later in 2012.
But, contrastingly, capital investments grew at a much slower pace, from Rs 852 crore to Rs 6,354 crore during the period.
“And this presents a huge dichotomy in that we’re left with hardly any resources to meet with the huge developmental aspirations,” Chandy said.
Pension and interests devour resources. Push and pull by varied heads of accounts ranging from the Rs 4,000-crore Kochi Metro to wages of anganwadi workers are too taxing to handle.
“Unless there is growth, the State will be forced to give up sector by sector and leave each to fend for itself. This could become true even in the case of welfare schemes,” the Chief Minister warned.