The Maharashtra finance ministry has set a target to achieve an additional two per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the state in the coming years. According to finance minister Sudhir Mungantiwar, with the implementation of a four-way formula, the state’s GDP will cross the two-digit mark from the existing 8 per cent.
Speaking with The Asian Age, state finance minister Sudhir Mungantiwar said, “Though we say proudly that India is an agro-based country in which more than 68 per cent of the population depend on agriculture, the export share of agro-based products in the country’s GDP is merely 0.026 per cent.” He said Maharashtra’s share would be further low. Brazil’s share in export of agro-based products is 8.37 per cent.”
Mr Mungantiwar said the state was planning to increase the share of the agriculture sector in the GDP by promoting agro-based businesses. “It will also increase the growth of the state’s GSDP (Gross State Domestic Product) by 2 per cent’. He further said that the state’s current annual growth is between 8 to 8.25 per cent and 2 per cent would mean the state’s annual income would go up by '50,000 crore.
The state finance ministry has focused on four major steps that will increase the state’s income and GSDP. According to Mr Mungantiwar, expenses on unproductive sectors will be reduced or stopped, expenses on productive sectors will be increased, and leakage in tax mechanism will be sorted out and multi-tasking manpower promoted. The state will also consider promoting agro-based processing industries in various regions of the state, such as oranges in Vidarbha, cotton in Vidarbha and Khandesh, cashew nuts in Konkan and so on.
Mr Mungantiwar said that the processing unit would give value-added status to agro-products and would help farmers increase their income and also benefit the state in the form of foreign exchange through exports.
He also said that finding leakages in tax systems was a major challenge before the state. ‘We have no proposal to increase tax on any item, but will stop leakages, particularly in sales tax system to increase income,’ he said.
Elaborating on multi-tasking manpower, Mr Mungantiwar said, ‘Globally, manpower is utilised in a systematic way where a single person performs all works including the skilled work assigned to him as well as office work. We are considering bringing in such a policy in Maharashtra.’
