Kolkata: State Finance minister Amit Mitra said on Thursday that an unstable real exchange rate due to borrowing of foreign money may jeopardise the businesses in the country. Mitra also urged the businessmen to be careful while borrowing foreign money. He was speaking at the inauguration of the new Integrated Leather Complex at Bantala on Thursday. He said that if any foreign banks hike the interest rates, it will affect the borrowers. Sharing some Bengal-specific data, Mitra said planned expenditure in the state has increased six times in last eight years, while the capital expenditure in the state has increased 11 times. According to Mitra, the physical infrastructure in the state has also increased five times. The Bengal government has increased the allotment in agriculture as well. During his speech, Mitra has given a detailed account of how the Centre has reduced budgetary allocation in different schemes in the current financial Budget, pointing out the 1.8 percent reduction in allotment under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). The Centre has also slashed the budgetary allocation for the umbrella schemes for scheduled castes by 28.4 percent. Mitra, during his recent speech on the Union Budget, had said that where unemployment rate of the country stands at 6.1 percent, the figure in Bengal at 4.6 percent is much lower than the national average. It may be mentioned that the Narendra Modi government often claims that it is carrying out development projects for the people belonging to the scheduled castes category. Many have since raised questions on the implementation of the schemes.

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