Ranchi, Jan. 23: The Raghubar Das government, saddled with a pro-industry, pro-elite image, today tried to silence carping critics by tabling the state annual budget for 2017-18 that solidly focussed on a back-to-basics approach, allocating hefty resources to education, the rural sector and women's empowerment.

Holding the finance portfolio, chief minister Das presented the Rs 75,673.42 crore budget, 19.17 per cent higher than the previous one, with features that uphold the state government's avowed theme of Gareeb Kalyan Varsh for 2017-18, even though the JMM dismissed it as uninspiring and Congress and JVM lambasted the forgotten promises made last year.

"This budget is the very start of a three-year road map we have prepared for the positive growth of Jharkhand. Education and skill development have been given maximum stress to fight poverty and unemployment in villages," the chief minister said.

Das stressed on the maximum provision of Rs 10,517.64 crore for education, including skill programmes, with Rs 1,167.10 crore for higher education. The rural sector, including panchayati raj schemes, with a provision of Rs 10,473.70 crore, which is 13.84 per cent, follows in the government's list of priorities (See box).

On the slew of initiatives in education, Das referred to Binod Behari Mahto Koyalanchal University in Dhanbad, upgrading Ranchi College as a university and three new private universities in the new fiscal.

The Centre has also been requested to approve proposals to set up Baba Baidyanath Sanskrit University in Deoghar and a Central Tribal University in the state on the lines of Indira Gandhi National Tribal University in Madhya Pradesh.

New engineering colleges would come up in Ranchi, Bokaro and Deoghar. Six more polytechnics too would come up. The Centre has approved the proposal to set up a branch of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Deoghar. Nursing schools are proposed in Latehar, Lohardaga, Deoghar, Pakur and Koderma. Pharmacy colleges would come up in every divisional headquarters.

"To make the proposed medical colleges in Hazaribagh, Dumka and Palamau (Daltonganj) functional, their 200-bed sadar hospitals would be converted as 500-bed hospitals. New medical colleges are also proposed in Bokaro and Chaibasa," Das said.

The government will introduce a bus service to enable girls in remote areas attend colleges and universities, Das stressed.

He also claimed that for the first time special budgetary provisions had been made for the welfare of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and development of Scheduled Areas.

"For the first time, Rs 50 crore budgetary provision has been made to provide education loans to students belonging to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and backward communities. Another Rs 30 crore has been made available for the development of native places of Birsa Munda, Sido-Kanho and other great martyrs. A corpus of Rs 10 crore has been provided for setting up Tana Bhagat Development Authority," he said.

Families of particularly vulnerable tribal groups will get 35kg of foodgrain at their doorstep every month under the postman scheme. The monthly honorarium of traditional tribal heads will go up.

Also, Rs 65.70 crore has been made available to build Haj House in Ranchi.

"Instead of making additional budgetary provisions to fight malnutrition in women in far-flung areas, we have tried to see that they regularly get nutritious diet at home, for which we will form more sakhi mandals (women's self-help groups) and equip them with skill development training. We will fix accountability of individuals, including angawadi workers and panchayat secretariat volunteers," Das said.

Claiming a 40 per cent decline in incidents of LWE violence, Das stressed an extensive action plan had been worked out to develop red terror zones.

The "police at your doorstep" campaign would also expand in ambit, he said.

Dairy plants will come up in Jamshedpur and Giridih.