– like offering laptops to meritorious students in schools and increasing prize money for sportspersons by ten times - to catch the attention of youths.
“We are her for the long haul; you don’t write us off so early,” a confident chief minister told reporters after his budget speech indicating that Congress would return to power in 2013 polls. But the decision to roll back, even though marginally, VAT on petrol has become the talking point of his budget. Gehlot reduced the VAT by two per cent bringing it down to 26 per cent and offering a relief of `1.06 on every litre of petrol to the end user.
That Gehlot has attempted to paint a pro-people picture of the government is evident from the fact that there are more goods and services on which taxes have been trimmed  than those that carry an additional financial burden. 
The chief minister has fancied his chances of reaching out to the aam aadmi by reducing taxes on automobiles and two-wheelers. Taxes on entertainment (cinema cable and any other segment) have altogether been abolished. 
But he has juggled well with numbers because he ends up with more revenue in spite of relaxing taxes on several segments. The state government would earn a revenue of Rs300 crore from the tax proposals, while sops would cost the exchequer around Rs225 crore.
The chief minister has made up for his loss in revenue from reducing taxes by increasing the District Land Committee Rates by 10 per cent. Put simply, it means owning a house would be costlier in the state.  In what is his fourth budget, Gehlot has made handsome allocation to social sector including energy generation, health and school education in the annual plan outlay of Rs33,500 crore. The fiscal deficit is projected to be Rs 8,650.60 crore for 2012-13.