The Finance Minister, Dr Haseeb Drabu today gave final touches to the Budget 2018-19 to be presented by him in the State Legislature tomorrow. This will be the 4th Budget in a row to be presented by Dr Drabu.The Finance Minister and his junior Minister Mr Ajay Nanda were huddled with the team of officers from the Finance Department for the whole day today to give final shape to the budget document which was approved by the State cabinet last evening.Chief Secretary, Mr B B Vyas and Principal Secretary Finance, Mr Navin Kumar Choudhary, were also present. The Budget speech to be delivered by the Finance Minister in the legislature at 12 noon on 11th January, will be telecast live on Doordarshan, Gulistan TV and TakeOne TV. It will be also broadcast live on 92.7 Big FM and Radio Mirchi 98.3 FM.The Finance Minister said he will make every effort to address the genuine concerns of every section of the society, while finalizing the budget proposals. He said the budget proposals to be presented by him tomorrow will be discussed threadbare by the legislators adding that good and genuine suggestions of the legislators will be given due consideration to make next year’s budget representative to the urges and aspirations of the people.
Dr Drabu said before formulating budget proposals, he undertook an exhaustive pre-budget exercise by consulting all the stakeholders including trade, industry , transporters, intellectuals, academicians, journalists and progressive farmers of both Jammu and Kashmir divisions to get first hand appraisal of their demands and suggestions.Dr Drabu complimented the team of officers of the Finance Department for working with dedication and zeal to make the whole exercise of the budget preparation fruitful. Pertinently, the crack team behind the State’s important fiscal exercise was working tirelessly for the past two months under the leadership of Principal Secretary Finance, Mr Navin Kumar Choudhary to prepare the Budget document.The other officers involved in this extended exercise include Director Codes, M A Andrabi, Director Budget, Imtiyaz Ahmad Mir, Additional Secretary Finance, Vishal Sharma, Joint Director Budget, Raman Gupta, Joint Director Resources, Showkat Hussain Mir, Additional Secretary Finance, Shahid Saleem, OSD to Finance Minister, Zamir Ahmad Qadri, Deputy Director Budget, Shafaat Yehaya and Accounts Officer Budget, Mushtaq Ahmad Shah.