State economy shrinking by 15 per cent: Himanta Biswa Sarma

STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI: Even though there has been a widespread concern about the health of State's economy due to the outbreak of COVID-19 and consequent lockdown, Dispur has decided to relax some of its austerity measures adopted to prevent unnecessary public expenditures. These austerity measures were taken during the last part of April when the nationwide lockdown was enforced.

Informing this at the Assam Assembly session on Tuesday, Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma added that the State's economy has shrunk by 15 per cent due to COVID and the pandemic-induced lockdown. He pointed out that the exact financial situation of the State could be assessed only after two to three months. He, however, assured the House that the present situation will improve by March 2021.

Claiming that the State has been able to manage the massive financial crisis that loomed large after the COVID-19 outbreak and the consequent lockdown, he said that the government is going to implement various welfare schemes by relaxing the austerity measures. The local area development funds of MLAs will be released by October 15.

Terming the report on the economy of Assam by the State Innovation & Transformation Aayog (SITA) as "an academic work", Sarma said that "the report lacks practical reflections". He pointed out that the report was made by focusing only on the lockdown.

The Finance Minister also said that the number of pending utilization certificates (UCs) of funds from various departments has gone down considerably. He admitted that some departments find it difficult to submit the UCs in time as major part of the funds is normally released in March-end of every financial year.

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