The Samajwadi Party on Tuesday slammed the Yogi government for failing to utilise budgeted funds for the 2017-18 fiscal earmarked for welfare and development schemes. The Opposition party charged that the Yogi government in the last one year had failed to fulfill promises it made in its Sankalp Patra (election manifesto) announced ahead of 2017 Assembly elections.
Initiating a debate on the budget for 2018-19 fiscal, Leader of Opposition Ram Govind Chaudhary said that the utilisation of funds in 2017-18 fiscal in rural development, minor irrigation, sugar industry, medical education, family welfare, urban development, tourism, integrated child development scheme, public works department, minority welfare, women welfare, basic education and several other departments ranged between 15 and 59 per cent by February-end this year.
Chaudhary said that there was no need for the budget for next fiscal 2018-19 as the government had failed in utilising the budgeted funds of 2017-18.
The SP leader said that there was nothing for the poor of the state particularly farmers and landless in flagship schemes of the Prime Minister like ‘Make In India’ and ‘Digital India’. He said contrary to its promise of ‘Acche din’, the BJP government failed to utilise budgeted funds of welfare schemes.
Chaudhary alleged that to hide its failures and divert public attention, the state government indulged in extravaganza and splurged public money in organising ‘UP Investors’ Summit’. “Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a globe-trotter and he has visited 90 per cent of the nations in the world, yet not a single country has invested a penny in India. The Investors’ Summit in UP was organised on the patterns of Gujarat where only 5 per cent of MoUs materialised so far. The BJP government, instead of working for the uplift of the poor, farmers and unemployed youth, extended lavish welcome to industrialists. Who will take the guarantee that industrialists will borrow from banks and invest in UP and they will not flee the nation later,” Chaudhary asked.
Terming SP president Akhilesh Yadav a ‘socialist thinker and philosopher’, the Leader of Opposition said: “Former Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav had a great vision and conceptualised the idea of Jai Prakash Narayan Centre in Lucknow and the BJP government intends to hand over the centre to a private party on lease.”
Participating in the debate, leader of Bahujan Samaj Party in Assembly Lalji Verma alleged that the BJP government failed to honour its election promise of providing interest-free loan to small and marginal farmers. He said that the state government presented the second budget and in both budgets there had been no provision for promises made by the BJP in its manifesto for 2017 Assembly poll. Verma said that the promise of ensuring payment to cane farmers by sugar mills within 14 days remained unfulfilled and by January-end this year cane arrears of the current cane crushing season 2017-18 was over Rs 5,000 crore. The debate will continue in the House on Wednesday.