The Assembly will witness its first paperless Budget session, with
Finance Minister Palanivel Thiaga Rajan set to present the revised
Budget for 2020-21 on August 13. Ahead of this, Mr. Rajan will release a
White Paper on the State’s finances on August 9.

“The situation is worse than what the previous releases have shown,” Mr. Rajan told The Hindu on Wednesday. “This
[White Paper] is something that I was committed to, and I am fulfilling
it. I wanted it to be as comprehensive as possible. It is 10 years’
worth of mismanagement. Before we go to the Budget, it is good that the
people of the State understand what is the true state of affairs,” he
said.

The White Paper, likely to be of 120 pages, will focus on
the State’s debt burden and the finances of the Electricity, Local
Bodies, Water Resources and Transport Departments, among others.

The
Minister said it took a long time to get the data together due to the
pandemic. “It is important that what we put out is accurate. I am not
saying it is comprehensive. We might need to do a few more things like
White Papers on GIM-1 [Global Investors Meet] and GIM-2 and Rule-110
announcements. Right now, it [White Paper] is a limited context on what
is the true financial situation of the State,” he said.

He
said once the White Paper was put out in the public domain, other
questions might arise and more clarifications sought. Based on these,
the Chief Minister might want to resolve issues raised when the DMK was
in the Opposition, he added.

Paperless Budget

A
notification issued by Governor Banwarilal Purohit on Wednesday said the
House would be convened at 10 a.m. on August 13. In February, the then
Finance Minister, O. Panneerselvam, had presented the interim Budget for
the year, ahead of the Assembly election.

The Budget, including
the full session with the demand for grants of all departments, will be
paperless. The Assembly Secretariat has already installed all-in-one
desktop personal computers on the desks of the legislators at the
makeshift Assembly hall in Kalaivanar Arangam to facilitate the reading
of the Budget as it is presented.

The MLAs will also be provided
with a tablet, the Budget papers and the demand for grants books five
minutes after the Budget is tabled in the Assembly.

Sources in the Assembly Secretariat told The Hindu that
a special software would be used to ensure that the e-Budget
proceedings go smoothly. This is being done in coordination with the
Information Technology Department, the National Informatics Centre and
ELCOT.

“We conducted a drill yesterday [Tuesday] and it worked well,” a source said.

The first agriculture Budget will be presented on August 14, the Additional Chief Secretary, Finance Department, said.