If all go according to plan, marijuana would be legalized soon in Manipur. The chief minister of the border state, well known for it exceptional quality of cannabis, is focused on tapping the magic green plant to extract it’s medical and industrial properties for commercial use. Chief Minister N. Biren Singh said this at a press conference held at  his Secretariat on Saturday. 

Further the CM said that the growth rate of the state’s Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) has doubled from 4 percent in 2016-17 to 8 percent in 2018-19. 

Briefing media persons, the Chief Minister stated that the State owned Tax revenue has increased from 587 crores in 2016-17 to above 1000 crores in 2018-19. 

“This result shows that there has been economic growth in the State,” he asserted. “Such pace of development and growth would transform Manipur into an advanced state in near future,” he added. Further he said that the government could achieve such result with the love, support and co-operation of the people of the State.

During the press conference, Chief Minister said that the government is planning to legalise cannabis solely for the medicinal and industrial purposes. The state cabinet would discuss the matter in the next Cabinet meeting. He also mentioned that other states like Arunachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand have already legalised Cannabis for medicinal purposes.
Chief Minister announced that under the ‘Start-up Manipur’ scheme, a new program called ‘Stand-up Manipur’ would be introduced to provide soft loans to SC, ST, OBC, Minority entrepreneurs of the State. A Facilitation Cell for enabling SC/ST/OBC/Minority entrepreneurs to provide information and assist the entrepreneurs belonging to weaker sections for availing the projects under various schemes of Government of India, he added.

Expressing the historic step taken by the Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on corporation tax rate cuts, Chief Minister said that all domestic companies would be allowed to pay corporation tax at the rate of 22 percent which was earlier 30 percent. Any new domestic manufacturing company, incorporated on or after October 1, 2019, will be allowed to pay corporation tax at the rate of 15 percent, he added. He maintained that no tax on buyback of shares in case of listed companies which have already made a public announcement of buyback before 5th July 2019.

Chief Minister also mentioned that there would be an expansion in the scope of CSR activities. The companies can now spend 2 percent of the money on State or Union government incubators, PSUs, state universities, IITs, public-funded entities, he added.

The press conference was attended by Principal Secretary (Finance) Rakesh Ranjan who is also Principal Secretary to CM, OSD to CM Sumant Singh and other officials.