In its last financial plan, Gujarat’s BJP government on Thursday introduced a ₹2,43,965-crore surplus budget for 2022-23 with various new schemes. The spending plan introduced by Finance Minister Kanu Desai is greater than last year’s ₹2,27,029-crore spending plan, which had vowed to make 22 lakh occupations (20 lakh private positions and 2 lakh government occupations) in five years.

The Gujarat government today declared that free Internet through WiFi facility will be given in 4000 villages. ₹71 crores are allocated to provide free WiFi facility in 4000 villages,

Free Internet to individuals in 55 towns is being given under the State government’s ‘Urban WiFi Project’, being executed in relationship with private specialist co-op GTPL, an official said.

Desai pointed out that the state’s gross domestic product had risen from ₹1.25 lakh crore in 2001, when Narendra Modi took over as chief minister, to over ₹20 lakh crore in the past two decades. “The state is expected to register an impressive double-digit GSDP growth of 13 per cent despite the adverse impact of Covid,” he said, adding that per capita income had also jumped from ₹19,823 to ₹2,14,809.