Finance Minister T.M. Thomas Isaac is the “king of utopian ideas” and the ideas in his budget are truly impractical, Leader of the Opposition Ramesh Chennithala told the Assembly here on Wednesday.
He was participating in a debate on the revised budget presented by Mr. Isaac on July 8.
The Finance Minister appeared to be one who had changed colours. There was nothing in the budget that was against the Central government, nothing against neo-liberalism. In one of his earlier budgets, Mr. Isaac had come up with the idea of mining sand from dams. Nothing came of it. Similarly, his dream of finding money outside the budget was impractical.
The setting up of a special purpose vehicle needed a viable business model. Such a model had not been presented in the budget. The anti-slowdown package would remain on paper. The Finance Minister would do well to remember that remittances to the State from West Asian countries were going down. In presenting a revised budget, Mr. Isaac seemed, like the character Rip Van Winkle, to have forgotten everything that the previous UDF government did, Mr. Chennithala said.
“I sympathise with you,” he said.
BJP charge
In his address, O. Rajagopal pointed out that the agriculture sector in Kerala was in a state of collapse. Industry was in the grip of a slowdown. As such, a new initiative was needed to revive the State’s economy. The proposal for the Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board was to be welcomed. But there were fears that setting up such a body would lead to a centralisation of administrative functions, he said.
