Rupees 10 billion has been allocated through the 2015 Budget proposals to infuse the Bank of Ceylon’s capital.

While presenting next year’s Budget proposals in Parliament, President Mahinda Rajapaksa said it has been proposed to increase the insurance of Sri Lankan depositors by 50 per cent.

Meanwhile the capital of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka has been raised to Rs. 50 billion. Here, the President pointed out at the significance of consolidation the financial sector.

Electricity tariff concessions

The Budget has also proposed a reduction of 25 per cent on the electricity tariffs of small and medium scale enterprises and a reduction of 15 per cent on large scale enterprises with effect from November 2014.

The government recently decided to reduce the domestic electricity tariffs by 25 per cent on whatever units consumed by households.

All taxes axed from infant milk powders

The 2015 Budget has proposed to exempt all taxes from infant milk powders and President Mahinda Rajapaksa requested the super markets to reduce their infant milk powder prices parallel to these proposals.

Furthermore, the 2015 Budget proposals have introduced a vehicle permit system for overseas employees.

A vehicle permit equivalent to 60 per cent of an overseas worker’s foreign exchange remittances is to be offered.

Income hike for government sector, minimum wage for private sector

The monthly earnings of a state sector employee would be increased to Rs. 25,000, said the President.

Accordingly, the allowances received by state sector employees have been proposed to be added thus increasing their minimum basic salary to Rs. 15,000.

The Cost of Living Allowance too is to be increased by Rs. 2,200 to Rs. 10,000.

These salary scales would be with effect from January 2015.

Meanwhile,President Mahinda Rajapaksa said the private sector has been requested to increase its basic salary scale to Rs. 10,000 per month and to increase the salaries of those already obtaining over Rs. 10,000 per month by another Rs. 500.