MAHARASHTRA Deputy Chief Minister and Finance Minister Ajit Pawar announced on Tuesday that the state government would provide a grant amounting to Rs 78,000 to every household under the Central Government’s rooftop solar scheme. Speaking during the state interim budget session, Pawar said, “For the Centre’s Suryagraha scheme, a grant of up to Rs 78,000 per household will be given for rooftop solar panels. Also, farmers will be provided with solar pumps at concessional rates to promote green and alternate energy sources.” The rooftop solar programme announced in the interim Budget tabled on February 1, is known as ‘PM Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana’. A supplementary budget (full budget) will be presented after the Lok Sabha elections, likely to be held in April-May, said Pawar, who presented his first budget as Finance Minister of the Eknath Shinde Government, which he joined in July 2023.

SHIV Sena (UBT) leader Uddhav Thackeray on Tuesday said the Maharashtra interim budget is full of assurances with an eye on upcoming elections and termed it pro-contractor. “There is no clarity on what happened to the announcements made in last year’s budget,” Thackeray told reporters. He said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had performed bhoomi poojan for a Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj memorial, but the project has seen little progress. The bhoomipujan for the memorial of the Maratha king in the Arabian Sea was performed in December 2016. “The budget presented today is full of assurances keeping the elections in mind. The announcements made are big and alluring, actually, it (the budget) is for contractors,” Thackeray added. While the working class and farmers are in distress, people don’t trust the government, the former Chief Minister alleged.

 

THE Opposition Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) on Tuesday said the interim budget for FY 2024-25 presented in the Maharashtra Assembly by the Eknath Shinde Government was supposed to be for the next four months, but it was presented as a full budget keeping in mind the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. Party’s state president Jayant Patil said the budget was also an attempt by the Shiv Sena-BJP-NCP government to shore up its declining popularity. “An interim budget is supposed to be for the next four months, but the government has presented a budget like it is a full-budget. The budget has been prepared by keeping the upcoming Lok Sabha polls in mind,” claimed Patil, a former Finance Minister.