TN Assembly budget session starts

All eyes are on Tamil Nadu Assembly, as the government led by chief minister Edappadi Palaniswami is presenting its first budget today.

This will also be the first budget of finance minister D Jayakumar. The main opposition DMK is likely to bring a no-confidence motion on speaker P Dhanapal, besies raising various other issues in this session.

The first budget of the Palaniswami government, which had last month won a trust vote in the Tamil Nadu assembly, is expected to be a tax-free one.

On February 18, the Palaniswami government had won the confidence vote in the assembly by a comfortable 122-11 margin after high drama and bedlam in the House.

Recently, Palaniswami led cabinet meeting to discuss budget and other things.

"The meeting discussed the grants for each department in the budget," sources said. The session will begin with the budget presentation followed by debates on grants for various department.

Meanwhile, experts are of the opinion that the state finances are a shambles and only the Centre can bail it out.The state's revenue deficit is likely to cross Rs 16,000 crore and fiscal deficit Rs 40,000 crore, said reports.