Jammu, March 7 (Scoop News) – Terming the budget presented by Finance Minister Abdul Rahim Rather as routine, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) president Mehbooba Mufti regretted that no relief has been given to poor people, farmers, unemployed youth and employees in the budget provisions. She said that keeping in view the soaring prices of essential commodities, poor people were hoping that Finance Minister would give some relief to them in the budget provision. She, however, regretted that no especial provision has been made to keep a check on soaring prices of essential commodities. She observed that some relief must be given to the poor people in the budget. She said that no effective steps have been to control inflation in the State. She also mentioned that Finance Minister has not presented any proposal to accelerate growth rate in the State. She emphasized that some steps should be taken to give relief to poor people, who have facing hardship due to soaring prices of the essential commodities. She further pointed out that unemployment is the biggest challenge in the State but the Finance Minister has not made any provision to solve this problem. Strongly opposing proposal of the Finance Minister to increase tax on items entered the State through Lakhanpur, PDP chief said that this step would have cascading effect as it will further increase prices of essential commodities and the poor people would be worst suffer of the this unnecessary step. PDP further mentioned that no provision has been made in the budget to enhance scale of the ration to the people. “Already people have been getting subsidized ration on the basis of the census of 2001. Furthermore the authorities have deceased scale of the ration without any reason”, she regretted.
PDP chief also criticized the Finance Minister for not enhancing budget for social security schemes like old aged pension, widow pensions or stipend for physically challenged persons. She further said that backward and rural areas were neglected in the budget.
Mehbooba Mufti further added that no provision has been made in the budget for improving power situation in the State. Our main resources generation source is water but there is no concrete proposal in the budget for exploring this natural resource, she said.
Coming down heavily on State Government for betraying the employees, she said that during the last two years this regime has been cheating the government employees with one way or other. She said that Central government has already given arrears of the 6th Pay Commission to its employees so there was no reason for State Government to deny the same to its employees.
She warned that such anti-employees attitude of the State Government would create a sense of disillusionment among government employees who are backbone of the government.