Union Finance Minister, Shri Pranab Mukherjee, held a Pre-Budget Meeting with States and Union Territories with Legislature here today. During the day-long Conference with the Chief Ministers and Finance Ministers, the suggestions which were put forward 'inter alia', included:

- General macro-economic issues

- FRBM and Devolution issues

- Allocation of funds for various schemes and programmes of Government of India

- Implementation related problems

- Sectoral issues relating to Agriculture, Irrigation, Credit, MSME, Road infrastructure, etc.

- Tax related matters.

In his concluding remarks, the Finance Minister informed that he would consider the valuable suggestions and ideas generated during the deliberations while formulating the Budget proposals for 2009-10.

The conference was attended by Chief Ministers of Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Rajasthan and Goa and Finance Ministers of States/UTs. The Ministers of State for Finance, Shri S.S. Palanimanickam and Shri Namo Narain Meena participated in the meeting. The opening remarks were made by Finance Secretary Shri Ashok Chawla. Senior officials from Ministry of Finance and State/UT Governments also attended the meeting. Pre-budget consultation: proposals on macroeconomic, devolution, sectoral and tax issues to inform budget formulation. Union Finance Minister convened a pre-budget consultation with state and UT leaders to solicit proposals on macroeconomic policy, FRBM implementation and devolution, funding allocations for central schemes, implementation bottlenecks, sectoral needs (agriculture, irrigation, credit, MSME, roads) and tax matters; the Minister stated these suggestions would be considered in formulating the Budget for 2009-10.