Saturday, Jan 18, 2003
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Andhra Pradesh
By Our Special Correspondent
Addressing a press conference, Mr. Rosaiah said the exercise was just another attempt at covering up "the failures'' of the Government but not an attempt at presenting a people-friendly budget. The TD Government had never honoured its budgetary commitments so far and had not released the amounts earmarked under various heads. To avoid criticism on this count, it was now asking people to discuss and approve the draft budget. Mr. Rosaiah wondered whether people's approval had any sanctity as the Government never bothered honour the opinion and resolutions of the Assembly where the budgets were passed. He said "the ad hoc approach''of the Government and seeking shortcuts had robbed the charm of the budgets and it had resorted to alterations to suit its needs. People were being burdened with mounting debts while non-plan expenditure was becoming unlimited. There was no check at all on the expenditure on non-productive programmes and schemes. Experts' warnings and recommendations were not being heeded to as the Government was shying away from making appropriate changes to the budgetary proposals fearing criticism, he said. Unless it woke up to the reality, the new budget would be another nightmare and this time the blame for the negative budget would rest with people who would not have any say in any aspect of it. Terming it a "way-side exercise,'' he said the Chief Minister was only trying to while away time on the pretext of discussing the proposal to divert people's attention. The Government had earlier sought "a zero budget'' but later had done away with it. It would not be a surprise if it did the same now, he said. Mr. Rosaiah felt it was just another publicity stunt of the party chief as the TD had never attached any sanctity to the budget. On the dispute between prominent TD leaders of Kurnool district, he said, "It is up to the Government to order a probe into the irregularities committed by them. We have been saying that the TD leaders are involved in several scams. The least it could do now is to probe its own partymen's charges.'' On petrol prices hike, he said the oil sector had become a big mess due to "the anti-people'' policies of the Government. No one ever knew when there would be stability to the prices. Growing prices defied all reason as even during the days when the country was dependent on imports such a fluctuation or variation in prices was never witnessed. On ever increasing accidents Mr. Rosaiah urged the Government to take measures to curb the menace. Another dubious distinction of the State was that it had already become "AIDS capital for the country.'' Should not the Government take credit for this "first also,'' he asked.
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