Tourism gains in budget bill

Ministry of Tourism and Sports’ fiscal year of 2012 budget is likely to increase if the House of Representatives approves the budget bill on Friday.

The House of Representatives is expected to pass a Bt2,380,000 budget bill for fiscal 2012 now in its third reading.

Tourism and Sports Ministry is likely to be the second largest beneficiary gaining Bt3,510 million in the latest budget bill. It had earlier requested Bt6,754 million, but that has been revised to Bt10,264 million.

However, Transport Ministry should enjoy the biggest budget increase – Bt7,542 million.

The Transport Ministry requested Bt81,310 million, but the vetting panel decided to award the ministry Bt88,852 million.

The Education Ministry also gains a big increase in allocations to Bt1,874 million from its proposal for Bt418,616 million.

Other favoured ministries include the Ministry of Defence (Bt168,887 million, up Bt1,441 million from Bt167,446 million), Interior (Bt285,254 million, up Bt1,379 million from Bt283,875 million), and Finance (Bt191,415 million, up Bt474 million from Bt190,981 million).

The Labour Ministry could face a reduction of Bt10,949 million from a proposed Bt27,265 million to Bt16,316 million, followed by the Agriculture and Cooperatives Ministry, which may lose Bt1,272 million. It has to settle for Bt76,721 million instead of Bt77,993 million.

Other ministries suffering from lower budgets are Public Health (Bt91,996 million, down Bt1,060 million from Bt93,056 million), Industry (Bt5,737 million, down Bt560 million from Bt6,297 million), Justice (Bt17,946 million, down Bt258 million from Bt18,204 million), and Science and Technology (Bt8,052 million, down Bt170 million from Bt8,222 million).

The House of Representative considers the final reading of the budget bill, 2012, 6 January.

Source - ttrweekly