Congress Govt’s budget has let down all sections, says Harish Rao

Congress government was certain to incur the ire of the farming community for having made a meagre allocation of Rs 19,746 crore of which nearly Rs 3,000 crore would go for establishment charges such as staff salaries, said Harish Rao

Hyderabad: Almost every section of the society has been let down by the Vote-on-Account budget of the Congress government, former Finance Minister T Harish Rao said here on Saturday.

Reacting to the budget, he said despite the lavish promises made by the party aimed at luring the electorate during the Assembly polls, Finance Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka proved to be tight-fisted. The allocations made by him to key sectors had exposed the yawning gap between the words and deeds of the ruling party, Harish Rao said, adding that the Congress government was certain to incur the ire of the farming community for having made a meagre allocation of Rs 19,746 crore of which nearly Rs 3,000 crore would go for establishment charges such as staff salaries. Waiver of farm loans up to Rs 2 lakh, one of the major electoral promises, would require Rs 40,000 crore while implementation of the enhanced Rythu Bharosa would require an outlay of Rs 22,000 crore.

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The implementation of all the promises made for the farm sector including Rythu Bima would require not less than Rs 82,000 crore. The government had promised to extend the Rythu Bima cover to tenant farmers as well. But there was no mention of a time-frame for the loan waiver along with many other guarantees. The government was deliberately silent on the 100-day deadline which it had announced earlier for implementation of its guarantees.

Calling it “joke of the millennium” budget, Harish Rao maintained that the government’s failure to fulfill the promises to farmers would cost the morale of the farming community. The power supply to the agriculture was not the same under the Congress rule. The government had failed to give the round-the-clock power supply to the farm sector. It was one of the priority issues on the agenda of BRS president K Chandrashekhar Rao.

He said the pensioners too were deceived by the government. It had promised enhanced Aasara pensions of Rs 4,000. They ended up receiving neither the Rs 2,000 given originally nor the enhanced amount of Rs 4,000. The pensioners were still waiting for the pension amounts for January and February to be credited into their accounts.

According to the Congress manifesto, the Chief Minister should hold Praja Vani programme every day. The Chief Minister took part in the Praja Vani programme only for one day. Later, Ministers appeared in the place of the Chief Minister and finally the task was entrusted to officials.

Seeking to know for himself the source for the Rs 59,000 crore additional revenue the government had sought to raise, he asked whether the government would raise the taxes to mobilise the additional revenue. The government would require over Rs 45,000 crore for the implementation of the Maha Lakshmi scheme.