Leader of the Opposition V.S. Achuthanandan has urged Finance Minister K.M. Mani to produce a white paper on the schemes in the last two Budgets which are yet to be implemented.
He was speaking in the general discussion on the Budget for 2013-14 at the Assembly here on Wednesday.
The Budget which was being touted as a roadmap to growth is actually a roadmap to ruin. Whereas the Kerala State Road Transport Corporation needed a Rs.1,000-crore revival package, the Finance Minister had allocated only Rs.100 crore. The allocations for industry and information technology too were inadequate.
The government’s hypocrisy on the question of raising the pension age was evident from Mr. Mani’s failure to read out the portion containing the same in the Budget speech. This was nothing but a backdoor hike in the pension age. This was also indicative of a secret move on the part of the government to raise the pension age of serving employees too, he said.
It would be laughable to describe Mr. Mani’s Budget as being pro-agriculture. The pronouncements in the Budget would only aid big-time estate owners. The working class, in Mr. Mani’s view, were the bourgeoisie, he said.
The raise in welfare pension, though generally welcome, came at a time when there was a drastic increase in the cost of living, he said..
