News
Budget highlights at a glance
View(s):- Casino entry fees US $ 100 per person; increase of Gaming Levy to 10 per cent of turnover to raise further revenue of Rs. 2,500 million.
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- Judiciary, Tax Department and default taxpayers to assist settlement of disputed tax and EPF payment arrears within 6 months. Property of such tax defaulters to be vested in the State.
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- Maximum PAYE tax at 16 per cent for wage earning employees and professionals
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- Foreigners can obtain land through long lease by paying land tax at 7.5 to 15 per cent. The tax to earn Rs. 2,000 m.
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- Enforce exchange control regulations to prevent foreigners from engaging in illegal land transactions.
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- Rs. 150 billion of CPC debt transferred to equity and guarantee its financing to rebuild the pipeline network, storage facilities and capacity expansion of the oil refinery to 1,500 mt. CPC will form a joint venture to protect its interest in the Trincomalee oil tank farm which had been sold to the Indian Oil Company.
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- Reduce water charges for households, for the first 25 units, by 10 per cent.
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- Rural transport augmentation by deploying 400 small buses. Import 500 more small buses to expand these rural services.
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- Strengthen CTB with 2,000 more buses. Public investment of Rs. 1,000 million to be provided to CTB. Allocate Rs. 10 billion to rehabilitate airports at Ratmalana, Trincomalee, Anuradhapura, Palali, and Batticaloa. New airports at Kandy and Nuwara Eliya to promote domestic tourism.
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- Establish State plantation company to develop all JEDB and SLPC plantation lands with a capital infusion of Rs. 1,000 million.
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- Allocate Rs. 5,000 million to build modern sugar plants at Kantale, Hingurana and Pelawatta in 2015-16. Sugar cane farmgate price to increase to Rs. 4,500 per mt.
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- Provide Rs. 10 billion capital to strengthen the Bank of Ceylon deposit insurance to be increased by 50 per cent.
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- Distribute dividends to EPF members who have maintained accounts for more than 10 years.
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- Meet infrastructure financing by setting up an Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank with Chinese support.
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- Set up an International Arbitration Centre in Colombo. Set up courts to deal with tax matters, etc., to reduce delays in revenue coming to the State.
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- Allocation of Rs. 750 million to rehabilitate residential facilities, etc., for judges.
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- Rs. 2,000 million to build small dams across rivers flowing through the dry zone plains to create
reservoirs.
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- Rs. 20,000 million to provincial road development authorities to rehabilitate access roads in rural areas.
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- Correct the long standing railway workers’ salary anomalies.
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- Motorcycles in 2015 at an affordable cost to all postmen.*Guaranteed price of paddy to be increased to Rs. 34 – 40 per kilo. Also increase guaranteed price of potato, onion, dried chillies and maize. Three-year rehabilitation programme to restore abandoned paddy lands to cultivate paddy, fruits, vegetable and for floriculture.
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- Rs. 5,000 per acre for smallholder plantations to support land preparation.
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- Increase replanting subsidy for tea smallholders from Rs. 875,000 to Rs. one million and new planting subsidy from Rs. 625,000 to Rs. 750,000 from next year.
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- Increase cess on rubber imports by Rs. 10 per kilo. Guaranteed price for rubber to be Rs. 300 per kilo
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- Increase new replanting subsidy for coconut from Rs. 7,000 to Rs. 10,000 per acre. Subsidy for rehabilitation of coconut land increased from Rs. 15,000 to Rs. 20,000 per acre.
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- New plantation academy to develop a new generation of professional planters.
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- Farmer pension scheme to be extended to all smallholder farmers. Increase capital contribution to the farmer pension scheme by Rs. 5,000 million, over the next three years.
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- Pension scheme for apparel industry employees.
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- Guaranteed price of a litre of liquid milk to be Rs. 60 per litre; reduce price of locally made milk powder by Rs. 100 per kilo and of yoghurt by Rs 5.
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- Rs. 700 billion to expand the capacity of dairy farmer training centres.
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- Rs. 3,000 for those adversely affected by kidney diseases and provide Rs. 750 million to expand facilities at the Kidney Hospital at Maligawatta.
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- Rs. 300 million to set up special stroke centres.
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- Rs. 500 million to implement accelerated medical examinations of all citizens through mobile medical clinics.
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- Loan scheme for indigenous medical practitioners who earn up to Rs. 500,000 and obtain monthly allowance of Rs. 2,500.
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- Increase annual number of Year 5 scholarships to 25,000 and increase the allowance to those who pass the scholarship exam from Rs. 500 to Rs. 1,500.
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- Rs. 300 million to set up a Faculty of Management Entrepreneurship.
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- Recruit 50,000 teacher assistants in English, Mathematics, Science, Information technology, etc.
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- Double grants to Pirivenas to Rs, 500,000. 50,000 scholarships for vocational education. Each student to be given a Rs. 3,000 allowance.
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- Allowance of Rs. 3,000 per month to those studying at technical university colleges.
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Mahapola Scholarship monthly allowance to be increased to Rs. 4,000 from next year.