Drabu presents budget for 2018- 19

Srinagar/Jan 11 : Finance Minister Haseeb Drab here on Wednesday announced the implementation of 7th pay commission recommendations,15 DA for the state government employees, removal of the stagnation of engineers in engineering departments, reduction in the qualifying service to 20 years for the state government employees and the constitution of finance commission  for the allocation of finances to panchayat for which government plans to hold elections in  February this year.
Presenting the budget proposals for the year 2018-10 in the state assembly Finance Minister  Haseeb Drabu also  announced the hike in daily wages of skilled workers from Rs 50 to Rs225 and increasing of wages for highly skilled workers to Rs 400 a day . He also announced the extension of mediclaim insurance benefits to the pensioners of the state government and raising of the accidental insurance for state government employees from Rs 5 lakhs to Rs 10 lakhs.
Touching upon the issue of the tax collection he claimed the collection of rs 10,000 crore mark with government having surplus of  Rs13000 crores and also said that fiscal deficit has drastically come down to 5.7%,Claiming that the liabilities of the power development department has come down from 700 crores to Rs 300 crores. Immediately after  the  presentation of the budget by Finance Minister Haseeb Drabu the CPI(M) Secretary and MLA Kulgam sought clarifications from the government on the non inclusion of the power development department in the budget but nothing was heard amid noises and speaker adjourned the house  for the day.