Riyaz Ul Khaliq
KL NEWS NETWORK
SRINAGAR
The financial package that Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced on Saturday is over and above the routine plan and non-plan expenditures that J&K requires for its routine yearly budgeting, Finance Minister Dr Haseeb A Drabu said. Apparently the Prime Minister’s Reconstruction Plan –II, the package is being spent under TAMEIR (The Aggregative Macro Economic & Infrastructure Rebuilding Plan).
“The package is Rs 80,000 Crore which is in addition to Rs 34000 crore that goes to the road sector,” Drabu told Kashmir Life. “This is also in addition to the routine devolutions that state gets under Financial Commission, Central Sponsored Schemes and from the union tax pool covering most of the state and non state expenditure of the state.”
TAMEIR will be spent on five broad sectors. “It has a humanitarian relief part, a disaster management part, then there is social infrastructure, economic infrastructure and pure development funding,” Drabu, who has been working on the package for more than half a year, said. “The projects being taken up are listed already and will be formally made public shortly.”
TAMEIR plan is expected to have four different buckets for spending. More than Rs 60,000 Crore are expected to be spent on new initiatives, across various sectors of the state economy. Its another bucket is the ongoing and existing projects, some of which might be under way requiring new funding which is expected to be around Rs 7000 Crore. A series of projects negotiated already by the state and the Union governments will cost another Rs 7000 Crore but these be undertaken under the union budget line. Then it has nearly Rs 3500 Crore which is central assistance for projects which are already underway.
“It might take some time to formally announce the projects that would be taken care of under TAMEIR plan,” the finance minister said. The announcement is the sole prerogative of the Prime Ministers Office (PMO).
Indications suggest the major part of the humanitarian part of the TAMEIR is to help the trade and the society get out of the flood dictated morbidity. The final detail will be available once the PMO makes a formal detailed announcement of the package, sources said.
Official spokesman, in the meanwhile quoted Dr Drabu saying that Rs 8000 crore stands earmarked for humanitarian relief including rehabilitation of the flood-affected.
“Dr Drabu said the economic package announced by the Prime Minister is to be spent over next five years and it would not only rejuvenate the flood-hit state economy but create huge job opportunities as well,” the spokesman said. “Dr Drabu said Prime Minister’s assertion that the announcement of today’s package for J&K is only a beginning and much more is going to come to the State to boost its economy and employment opportunities is a commendable gesture towards Jammu and Kashmir.”
