Financial resources of Puducherry Administration are limited: Lt Guv

Puducherry, July 31 (PTI) The Puducherry Lt Governor C P Radhakrishnan on Wednesday said the financial resources of the Union Territory are “very limited” and the government is constrained to govern within the available resources.

Inaugurating the budget session (2024-2025) of the Puducherry Assembly, the Lt Governor said that the government had however represented its commitment to ensure adequate provision of funds for the welfare of the deserving people.

In his speech, he said the Puducherry government had incurred expenditure to the tune of Rs 11, 464 crores as against the total outlay of Rs 12, 250 crores during the last financial year (2023-2024) which worked out to 93.59 percent. “The expenditure incurred is comparatively 6.55 per cent higher than the previous year`s (2022-2023) achievement.”

Radhakrishnan noted that the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) is the most crucial fiscal indicator to measure the economic development of a state.

The GSDP of Union Territory has been estimated at Rs 48,052 crores (current price) for 2023-2024 which is 7.54 percent higher than the previous year (2022-2023). He claimed that the per capita income of Puducherry had increased from Rs 2,44,469 (current price) for the year 2022-2023 to Rs 2,63,068 (current price) for the year 2023-2024 showing a growth rate of 7.61 percent.

Listing the achievements of various departments during the 2023-2024 fiscal year, Radhakrishnan said the Karaikal port had during 2023-2024 handled 12.28 million tons of cargo and earned Rs 16.81 crores as revenue. Similarly, a captive marine terminal facility functioning at Karaikal had handled 24,266 tons of liquid cargo and earned Rs 29.60 lakh as revenue.

The cargo handling operations between Puducherry port and Chennai port had commenced during the previous fiscal and coastal container ship had made nine voyages and handled 242 containers.

Before he started reading out the inaugural address members belonging to the opposition DMK and Congress rose to express their protest against non-implementation of the assurances the government had made in the last Assembly session.

The Lt Governor, however, asked the opposition block to listen to his address.

“Please wait and listen to my address as that would be the best feature of democracy,” he said and the opposition legislators resumed their seats.

Later, when the Lt Governor went ahead with his speech, all the DMK and Congress legislators rose to register their protest against lack of any firm announcement.

The Lt Governor however was unmindful of the protest by the opposition and kept reading out his address.

All the DMK and Congress members trooped out of the House and did not return till the end of the day’s session.

Radhakrishnan, who would assume the charge of Governor of Maharashtra later in the day, shook hands with CM N Rangasamy and others present in the House before leaving.

Speaker R Selvam announced that a debate on the motion of thanks to Lt Governor`s address moved by the Parliamentary Secretary to Chief Minister A John Kumar and seconded by the government whip A K D Arumugham after the Lt Governor left the House would take place in the House on Tuesday.

He adjourned the day’s proceedings till 9.30 am on Tuesday.

The Chief Minister will present the budget for the fiscal 2024-2025 on the floor of the House on August 2.