Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Monday presented a Rs 2,918-crore deficit Budget for 2008-09 and claimed that the state would be able to achieve an 8-per cent growth during the year.

While infrastructure development continued to be a major area of focus, Gogoi also announced a series of schemes aimed at uplift of women, tribals and minorities, the last group having ‘dangerously’ drifted away from the Congress in the 2006 Assembly elections.

Gogoi’s budget, which kept in mind the Prime Minister’s 15-point programme for welfare of minorities, raised the Government’s support to the Minority Welfare Board by Rs 2 crore, while Rs 25 crore was separately set aside for a special programme for all-round development of the minorities. This was in addition to Rs 12.20 crore for Char area (riverine areas inhabited by migrant Muslims) development and Rs 1 crore for improvement of Madrasa education, apart from free computers to first-divisioners in the state Madrasa Board exams.

Road connectivity on the other hand had the highest allocation of Rs 1,380 crore, which was in addition to Rs 1,000 crore available directly by the state under PMGSY, Gogoi said. The power sector has been allocated Rs 593 crore.

But it is on women and children that the Congress-led coalition Government appeared to lay maximum stress, with Gogoi also introducing gender budgeting for the first time in Assam. Schemes worth Rs 207.81 crore have been identified for implementationthrough 12 departments with a target of about 30 lakh beneficiaries, which includes both women as well as girls.

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