Terming the Union Budget 2013-14 presented by Finance Minister P. Chidambaram on Thursday as a “lacklustre one”, Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar said it lacked effective measures to revive the country’s sluggish economy. He described the budget as “anti-growth and anti-development”.
In a release, the Chief Minister said: “Indian economy is facing stagnation following global financial slowdown leading to decline in growth of agriculture, manufacture and service sectors. This has affected the country seriously as employment opportunities too have reduced. In this background, it was expected that Union Finance Minister would initiate necessary schemes and programmes to revive the national economy. But this expectation has not been fulfilled”.
Pointing out that the Union government had suggested to the States to limit the fiscal deficit to 3 per cent of the GSDP, he said: “But the Centre itself has failed to take any measures at the national level to reduce the fiscal deficit as its own fiscal deficit stands at a high level of 5.2 per cent”.
He took exception to the Centre not responding to the State’s request to provide support for improving Bangalore’s infrastructure.
Dip in Central assistance
Mr. Shettar, who also holds finance portfolio, said the State share in central taxes was expected to reduce by 3.4 per cent in the current financial year. This would mean that the State would get Rs. 400 crore less than that estimated in the budget for 2012-13.
Similarly, the Central assistance to the State plan was expected to reduce by about Rs. 1,000 crore compared with that of the estimates made in budget for 2012-13, he said.
He alleged that fresh funds had not been released for the last three years under PMGSY scheme to the States like Karnataka that have successfully implemented the scheme.
He said instead of providing stimulus to the economy in this crucial time, the Union Budget aimed at curtailing development expenditure. “On the whole, this is a budget aimed at maintaining status quo. It does not contain any programme that can trigger faster economic growth,” he said.
He took exception to the Union Budget not mentioning any strategies to check the growth of black money and measures to bring back black money of Indians illegally stashed away in foreign banks.
