New Delhi, Feb 5 (KNN) Matching the populist fervor of interim Budget 2019, West Bengal Finance Minister Amit Mitra presented the state budget with full of doles and financial  unemployed youth, schemes for small farmers and women ahead of the Lok Sabha election in May this year.

Mitra announced a massive Rs 1 lakh financial assistance scheme for 50,000 unemployed youth for promoting self-employment.

The Finance Minister has also raised monthly wages for contractual workers and data entry operators by Rs 2000 from February and proposed a raise of ex-gratia payment to contractual workers to Rs 3 lakh from Rs 2 lakh. 

Besides, Mitra has also increased payment to Asha and Anganwadi workers by Rs 500 from February. 

The budget proposed to provide Rs 2.38 lakh crore for FY20, which was 10.7% higher than the last year’s proposal while the state’s gross domestic product is projected to grow to Rs 11.6 lakh crore by March 2019. Mitra said Bengal’s own tax collection grew to Rs 57700 crore in FY18. 

Presenting Rs 9 crore deficit budget at the state assembly, Mitra has a provided for the Kishak Bandhu scheme announced by Banerjee in December last year whereby the state plans to offer Rs 5000 annual grant to farmers with one acre of land. Farmers and sharecroppers with less than one care holding will get grant proportionately subject to a minimum Rs 2000.