No new tax in AAP's Punjab budget; focus on health, education

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in Punjab presented a budget of about ?1.55 lakh crore on Monday, with an emphasis on sprucing up health and education infrastructure and housing for the economically weaker section.

AAP's maiden budget has not imposed any new tax. It has made provision for implementing its poll promise of 300 units of free power from July 1. However, no funds have been earmarked to implement a major election promise of ?1,000 monthly allowance for every woman above 18 years of age. While presenting the budget 2022-23, finance minister Harpal Cheema said around four election promises have been fulfilled and the fifth one (of monthly allowance to women) will be fulfilled in due course.

The Punjab budget borrowed heavily from the Delhi model of education and health - something that the AAP had promised in the run-up to assembly elections earlier this year. Like Delhi government's entrepreneurship model, the Punjab government schools will also have Punjab Young Entrepreneur Programme. Cheema said, "Punjabis are known for their entrepreneurial leadership but unfortunately our education system in the past did not focus on development of these essential entrepreneurial skills in students studying in schools. We believe that entrepreneurial skill is the main pillar of strength of our society and on this strong foundation, we intend to march forward. Punjab Young Entrepreneur Programme is a startup programme where class 11 students would be encouraged to propose their original business ideas, which would be supported by the government by providing seed money of ?2,000 per student. This programme is aimed to instill financial and leadership skills in the students, which would equip them to take charge of their careers later in their lives. I propose an allocation of ?50 crore during FY 2022-23 for this purpose."