AIADMK coordinator and former Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam said on Saturday that the DMK’s first Budget had left people “exasperated”, instead of “showing them the dawn”.
In a statement, Mr. Panneerselvam said the Budget had exposed the position of the DMK, which had made “false promises” to people despite knowing the fiscal situation. Allocations for various Departments had been lowered in the revised estimates for 2021-22.
Pointing out that the amount of food subsidy had been reduced from ₹9,604.27 crore to ₹8,437.57 crore amid reports of about 4.5 lakh new ration cards having been issued in the last three months, the former Finance Minister said people had begun having doubts whether a section of the beneficiaries under the public distribution system would be left out. There was no announcement on the provision of additional 1 kg of sugar and ‘urad dal’. The decision to defer the payment of dearness allowance to next year had disappointed government workers.
On the reduction in petrol price, he said that when the DMK assumed office on May 7, petrol was sold in Chennai at ₹93.17 a litre and diesel at ₹86.65. As on Friday, their prices had gone up to ₹102.49 and ₹94.39. In such circumstances, the decrease in petrol price by ₹3 a litre had caused “dissatisfaction” among people as there was no fall in diesel price.
Other than stating that a sustainable mining policy would be formulated to significantly increase the revenue from mines and minerals, the Budget had not spelt out any measure to mop up revenue. After the White Paper pointed to revenue and fiscal deficits and public debt, the Budget did not have anything to indicate changes to be brought about. Eventually, it had “nothing to boast of” and it was a “saddening Budget with full of trials and tribulations”.
In a separate statement, former Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami referred to media reports that the government planned to stipulate conditions for the waiver of loans given by cooperative societies against jewels of five sovereigns and decried such an attempt. He wanted the immediate waiver of all crop and jewel loans taken through the societies.
