The Congress in Uttarakhand has criticised the Union Budget terming it as “directionless”. The Uttarakhand Pradesh Congress Committee president said that the Union Budget presented on Thursday is directionless, detrimental to development and one that will fuel price rise against the interests of the common people.
Singh said, “Demonetisation and GST caused closure of a number of cottage industries in the country, devastated work in the real estate sector and minimised employment opportunities in the agriculture sector. About six crore people were rendered unemployed in these three sectors.
But, the Union Finance minister made no provision in the budget for generating new employment opportunities. This budget will benefit the capitalists. No increase has been made in any slab for income tax rebate due to which the employees will not benefit from tax rebate.
Instead of solutions for controlling price rise, the budget has plans for decreasing government share in government enterprises and handing these over to capitalists.
No special provisions for women are visible in this budget. Respecting and empowering women appears to be limited to the prime minister’s speeches.
Further, there is no relief in the budget for the farmers who are being forced by dire circumstances to commit suicide. The people of Uttarakhand were hopeful of provision for direct rail link to parts of Uttarakhand but as in the past, the Centre has disappointed the state’s people.”
The leader of opposition and former finance minister of the State, Indira Hridayesh termed the general budget very disappointing. She said, “It was being thought that the last budget of the Modi Government in this term would provide some relief to all sections of society.
But, the Union Finance Minister has provided no relief to the various sections of society. There is no relief in this budget for the youth, farmers and businessmen.
The Modi Government had earlier promised job for two crore youth every year but didn’t do so.
Now it has added another promise of providing job to 75 lakh youth in order to facilitate employment to two crore youth.
There is nothing in this budget for farmers and salaried employees.
There is neither mention of green bonus for Uttarakhand in the budget nor is there approval for any rail line in the State.
There had been talk of green bonus but no such provision was made for the state in the budget.
The condition of rail network in the State is bad. Far from introducing any new train for the State, here is no mention of any new railway scheme for Uttarakhand in the budget. This should have been taken into consideration.
Even the Karnprayag and Bageshwar railway line projects did not appear in this budget. All in all the general budget presented by the Centre is totally disappointing,” said Hridayesh.