Describing the budget presented by Bengal Finance Minister Amit Mitra as one directed at Maa, Maati Manus (mother, land and people), Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said here on Friday that the budget focuses on rural development and the empowerment of the girl child.
The budget addressed core constituencies of the TMC, promising Rs 10,000 to 10 lakh small and marginal farmers for setting up pumping sets and proposed distribution of 40 lakh bicycles to every school going student in Bengal from Class VIII to XII.
While the Opposition calls it “an election-year budget,” TMC chairperson described it as the one “to cater to the people.”
“So long, we have been distributing bicyles to girls. There were very few in the general category that got it. Now we will give cycles to students from Classes VIII to XII,” she said. The school education budget has been enhanced by more than 1,000 crore, presumably to accommodate the cost of the cycles.
A proposal was also made in the budget to hike the allocation to Rs 850 crore in the Kanyashree scheme, which provides yearly scholarship to school going girls . “We have increased the annual amount from rupees 500 to 750 for each girl student,” she said.
Both the Congress and the BJP were quick to describe it as a “budget of the election, full of populist measures” where no attempt was made for the industry-driven development of the State.
“It is a budget aimed at the 2016 Assembly elections. The Finance Minister has also tried to suppress difficulties and pitfalls of the fiscal discipline,” senior Congress leader Manas Ranjan Bhunia said. The lone BJP MLA, Samik Bhattacharya criticized the budget on similar lines.
“There have been no attempts to attract big capital in the State. Moreover, the 1.96 Crore debt, which the Bengal government inherited, is soon going to cross 3 lakh crores putting further burden on the people,” Mr Bhattacharya said.
Leader of the Opposition in the State Assembly Dr Surjya Kanta Mishra said that the budget is “not only a jugglery of statistics” but the Finance Minister “has manufactured some statistics.”
According to Dr Mishra, “the government has provided different figures of the proposed investments in the State in the Governor's address and the budget document.”
Dr Mishra also said that both the proposals of providing 40 lakh bicycles and 10 lakh pumping sets to farmers ‘are absurd.’
While he pointed out that in various areas of the State, pumping sets cannot be set up because of the low level of ground water, the CPI(M) leader questioned the procedure of procuring 40 lakh bicycles.
“There is no bicycle factory in Bengal. Now the Chief Minister claims that she will first set up a bicycle factory and then provide 40 lakh cycles,” Mishra concluded.
Rs 10,000 to be given
to 10 lakh small and marginal farmers
