Jammu, March 22, (Scoop News)-The congress legislature party leader, Rigzin Jora, calls the budget a damp squib. Terming it nothing new except for change in idiom and jargon, he asked where does Haseeb Drabu’s so called expertise as an economist gone. If anything one sees Drabu’ s journalistic acumen taking over from the economist. Mere playing with words doesn’t make the budget great. What should have been a trail blazer of a kind has been reduced to verbiage and idiomatic.
What is new in this budget he asked.”Budget should have been a holistic exercise for greater good and well being of the citizenry has been reduced to pettifogery and pusillanimity. ”
“A crumb here and crumb there. The budget lacks a general sense of direction”, Jora charged . The states economy will continue to depend of the public spending for economic growth whereas the idea should have been to catalyze the private sector and the entrepreneurial spirit of the citizens to ensure economic growth. None of the progressive states in India have seen economic growth on the strength of public spending alone.
The govt ‘ s role of Mr Drabu should realize have undergone paradigm shift . Government cannot afford to continue to play the role of provider. Instead, jora said, govt ‘ s role should be that of an enabler and a facilitator.
To that extent the budget gets it all wrong. Much has been made out of the fiscal devolution under 14 th finance commission. The fact of the matter is that at the end of the day the government will have lesser money in its kitty. With the Finance Commission award a large number of central sponsors scheme will now have to be funded by the ; equal number number of schemes will now have to be funded up to 50 per cent of the state . All this taken together takes the wind out of the Finance Commission award sail.
Tourism which has been singled for focussed attention by chief minister Mufti Sayeed gets next to nothing says Jora . The budget does not mention anything about the scheme of incentives in tourism – whether this government will continue with it – it is suppose to lapse this year if I can remind the Finance Minister.
Similarly what this thing about Jammu being eve loped as an independent destination? It has never been an appendage of Kashmir. It has always been an independent destination. If I can remind Finance Minister Jammu receives 1 crore tourist thanks to Mata Vaishno Devi.
What should have been spelt out instead was how to tap this captive market and disperse them in other areas and region of jammu so that dispersal of revenue from tourism takes place. A beginning was made during Azand sahib chief ministership and I hand carried it forward and today Badarwah receive more 400000 tourist.
Similarly more substantial measure should have been announced for small scale industries – largest employer. SMEs have been given the complete go by said Jora.
The special powers that the state has should have been harnessed for more productive work instead it has been used for levying service tax on services such as CAs, a nursing homes, beauty parlour and gym etc.
Jora asked what is it that this budget offers to employed youth both educated and uneducated? The answer is zilch. If anything words and more words – educate employ and empower. Nothing spelt about creation of employment avenues nor any incentive for self employment. What about the daily wager, daily rated workers and casual labour whose strength of 61000 also has previous PDP a government’s contribution – nothing about their regularisation.
What are you doing about reforming the governs net structure , system and the processes. Nothing except what is mandated in the e-governance programme of govt of India. E governance demand computer literacy says Jora, and here our Finanace Minister is levying tax on computers and related paraphernalia .
SMART governance which started by UPA government which is intended to make governance simple , moral, accountable, responsive and Transparent and has the potential to curb corruption doesn’t find enough resonance with the Finance Minister.
What does the farmer who constitute 65 per cent of the population get from this budget except for a 50 percent waiver on Kisan credit card. Similarly the tribal gets only a tribal as a Minister without resource and without full fledged department. Ideally 11 percent of the total plan is mandated to be set aside for the tribal as per the planning commission now Nity o commission guidelines.
Nothing new about this in the budget Jora points out and adds “there is nothing in this budget to cheer about”. It is Drabu the journalist who had prevailed over Drabu the economist, although conceding the flourish of the language used.
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