Dharamshala, March 29 – In what has been unprecedented in the 47 years of the Tibetan governance, the government-in-exile forecast a surplus income of nearly three million rupees for the fiscal 2006-07.
Finance Minister Lobsang Nyandak Zayul presented the budget, on the concluding day of the budget session of the Tibetan-government-in-exile in the scenic northern Indian town of Dharamshala on Tuesday.
During the session, the Privatisation of business units of the Central Tibetan Administration started in 2002 was successfully completed.
The Assembly of Tibetan People’s Deputies (ATPD) also approved the budget on specific welfare programmes that are to be undertaken in various Tibetan settlements in India, Nepal and Bhutan.
Zayul said this is the first time a surplus budget was proposed.
“This year we have a budget surplus of rupees 23.9 million as compared to the last year, when we had a budget deficit of some ten million rupees. And this is for the first time in the exiled Tibetan history that we have proposed a surplus budget and in the budget we have the administration of all the government offices including our overseas’ offices that are in ten different countries,” he said.
The budget proposed has a total outlay of over 882 million rupees, about 32 percent of which is allocated on increasing awareness of the issue of Tibet, 22 per cent on welfare services, 15 per cent on education, 10 per cent on running cost of the administration, 9 per cent on health, 7per cent on religion and culture and 5 per cent on others.
The budget is likely to be approved by the Speaker today.
The session of the Assembly of Tibetan people’s Deputies which started on March 16, is the last budget session of the 13th Tibetan Parliament-in-exile.
The Tibetan Parliament has heavily borrowed from Indian constitution and parliament. It is a one-house Parliament, which meets twice a year for about a fortnight each.
The life of Parliament is five years.
Though it functions like other legislatures, the plain, utilitarian structure is a testament to its temporary, exile status.
The Tibetan people, both inside and outside Tibet, consider the government-in-exile to be the sole legitimate government of Tibet.
An estimated 134,000 Tibetans live in exile, the majority of them in India and Nepal.
The Buddhist spiritual leader the Dalai Lama set up his seat of power in Dharamshala after he and his followers fled to India in 1959, nine years after China occupied Tibet.
The Dalai Lama has since been campaigning for greater autonomy for Tibet.
