Puducherry, Mar 14 (KNN) The Puducherry Chief Minister N Rangasamy presented a Rs 1,1600 crore tax free budget for the Union Territory on Monday.

The Puducherry government in the budget announced an IT Park to be set up with the assistance of the Software Technology Park of India in the UT.

In the Budget 2023-24, the government announced 1 per cent subsidy on the purchase of land, building and machinery each year for five years, totalling 5 per cent, to encourage educated unemployed youth to start industrial units. It also announced Rs 2 crore for traders’ welfare Association.

Highlighting the new initiatives planned by his government during the next financial year, the Chief Minister said the government would provide a subsidy of Rs 300 per month for 12 LPG cylinders in a year for all family ration card-holders in the Union Territory. A sum of Rs 126 crore has been set aside in the budget for this, for the next fiscal.

The government has also proposed obtaining negotiated loans from banks and financial institutions to fund infrastructure projects during the next financial year.

As per the advice of the Centre, the government has introduced special components in annual financial statement such as Gender Budgeting, Youth Budgeting and Green Budgeting. For these three sectors together, the government has earmarked a sum of Rs 2,391 crore.

An allocation of Rs 1,042.64 crore has also been made for the Health Department with an emphasis on upgrading hospital infrastructure.

Rangasamy also proposes to conduct a World Tamil Conference by involving Tamil scholars from across the world in Puducherry. A national conference would also be organised to mark the 150th birth anniversary of Sri Aurobindo to propagate his thoughts, philosophy, research on yoga and literature.  (KNN Bureau)