jaipur with an eye on the state elections next year chief minister ashok gehlot on wednesday announced a slew of peoplefriendly proposals in the budget for 202223 the cm went a step further by presenting the firstever agriculture budget in a bid to win the support of farmersfrom proposing the reintroduction of the old pension scheme for government officials to reducing power rates which are one of the highest in the country and increasing the insurance cover for chiranjeevi scheme from the existing rs 5 lakh to rs 10 lakh from gehlot reached out to all segments of the population including women who will receive 13 crore smart phones to work from homethere will be relief on power tariffs for 118 crore domestic consumers which will cost the exchequer rs 4500 crorewhile it seems like a sweep of populism the industry too did not have anything to complain about going all out in a record budget speech of three hours the cm accepted the longstanding demand of the hospitality industry and proposed the extension of benefits to the sector roiled by the pandemicthe agriculture budget built on 11 missions under the mukhyamantri krishak saathi yojana to galvanise the sector saw allocations rise from the earlier rs 2000 crore to rs 5000 crorespeaking to the media on the old pension scheme after the presentation gehlot said other states should also take a cue from the announcement if an employee gives 3035 years of his service to the government he should get security for hisher old age in 2004 the then government might have taken the decision for some strong reasons but now we need to think of it again no sgst for rural tourism units for 10 yrshe said all the employees appointed after january 1 2004 and after would also get the benefit of the old pension schemekeeping up with his image as a welfare leader gehlot proposed to expand the free healthcare services to opd ipd patients and critical illnesses invest rs 1224 crore in 15 more medical colleges and set up new institutions for neuroscience and nursingthe thrust was also visible in the education sector as the budget proposed to upgrade 3820 secondary schools to senior level and set up 2000 mahatma gandhi english medium schools in urban and rural areas in equal sharestrategic educational institutes like the residential para sports academy in jaipur and jodhpur an education hub at jln marg in the city and a sports training and rehabilitation centre in jodhpur have been proposed along with an engineering college at the khaitan polytechnic campus at rs 100 crore in jaipurrecognising the severe stress faced by the industry due to the covid pandemic the cm who also holds the finance portfolio levied no new taxes he extended relief of about rs 900 crore to bring down stamp duty on multiple transactions under the msme act industrial units have been exempted from prior approvals for three years and the relief extended to five yearsthe tourism sector was