Budget dashed hopes of all section: Harish Rao

The budget exercise, filled with self-congratulatory claims, lacked allocations for implementing its own guarantees within the first 100 days of Congress rule.

Hyderabad: Calling the State budget a mere jugglery of figures, BRS leader and former Finance Minister T Harish Rao said the Congress government’s priorities and allocations had dashed the hope of key sections in the State.

The budget exercise, which was replete with self-boasting claims, had no allocations for the implementation of its own guarantees that were supposed to be implemented in the first 100 days of the Congress rule. The budgetary allocations should reflect the election manifesto of the ruling party. But the priorities of the State budget were otherwise. All sections of people were left in despair and disappointment. There was no mention in the budget about the Rs.4000 pension for the aged. The government had promised to introduce Vidya Bharosa card providing an assistance of Rs.5 lakh each to the students. There was no mention of it in the budget. There was no mention of Rs.2500 support promised to women under the Mahalakshmi scheme as part of the six guarantees either, he said.

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The budgetary allocation made for the Rs 2 lakh loan waiver was only Rs.15,470 crore whereas the requirement, as per the government’s own claims, was over Rs.31,000 crore. How will the government be able to mobilise the rest of the funds and how will it manage such a waiver without the support of the budgetary allocations, he asked, stating that the issue would be raised on the floor of the House.

The Congress party that made a jugglery of guarantees before the polls had indulged in jugglery of figures while presenting its budget. The budget would put the State on a backward streak, he said, also pointing out that though the Congress had promised two lakh jobs a year, there was no mention of the job calendar. The government could neither make any mention of it nor make allocations. The budgetary allocations to key irrigation had come down from Rs.26,850 crore to Rs.22,301 crore. The Congress had promised to scale up the support under Dalit Bandhu from Rs.10 lakh to Rs.15 lakh, but the programme itself failed to find a mention in the budget.

The Congress had promised a support of Rs.12,000 to auto workers, but there was no move to implement it. Handloom workers were languishing in wretched conditions and dying by suicide, but nothing was set aside for them, he said, adding that the Golla Kurma community was cheated in the budget with zero allocations as against Rs .50 crore allocated in the last budget. The allocations made for implementation of pensions was Rs.7376 crore as against Rs.7335 crore last year, which indicated that the government had no intentions of increase pensions.