Rs 100cr for KAU, Metro gets Rs 60cr

Mar 17, 2012 |

Kochi

Tags:

Kochi Metro Rail

A Rs 60-crore allocation for the Kochi Metro Rail and a Rs 100-crore grant for the Kerala Agriculture University were the main attractions for the state in the Union budgeton Friday.

The allocation for the Kochi Metro, yet to get the final nod from the Planning Commission and the Union Cabinet, meant the Centre’s support and green signal for the start of the project.

The decision to pare the excise duty and exempt LNG from customs duty would provide a big boost to the LNG terminal in Kochi that’s expected to go on stream by the year-end.

Expectedly, chief minister Oommen Chandy and finance minister KM Mani were all praise for the budget, unlike in the case of the Railway budget which didn’t impress the state government.

Mani said the GST network by August would prove beneficial to the state.

The increase in the central devolution of taxes by over Rs 1,000 crore for the fiscal year 2012-13 is likely to give a big relief to the state, which is in a state of perennial fiscal stress. The central devolution for the coming fiscal is placed at Rs 7,082 crore.

The proposals to increase the base rate of excise and service taxes to 12 per cent from the existing 10 are unlikely to go down well in a consumer state like Kerala. The two measures are feared to stoke inflation, putting the life of the common folk in difficulty.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/134525" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-e194e217d18d80077d690356825c61f9" value="form-e194e217d18d80077d690356825c61f9" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="80429326" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>