The Bharatiya Janata Party has charged the Government with trying to hoodwink the people, projecting inflated figures in the budget presented to the Assembly a couple of days ago.
Initiating the debate on the budget in the Legislative Assembly on Wednesday, BJP member G.Kishan Reddy criticised the government for indulging in “jugglery of numbers” rather than presenting a real picture of the State’s economy.
He substantiated his charge by claiming as against the plan budget of ₹67,630 crore this financial year, the government could spend only ₹34,472 crore till December end. Spending till the end of the fiscal would be close to ₹50,000 crore, less than 70 per cent of the allocation . He faulted the government for projecting Excise related income at ₹19,000 crore for the next fiscal, claiming that at a time when there was need to regulate liquor consumption, the government was excessively depending on it to raise resources.
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Public debt
The BJP MLA criticised the government for projecting artificial figures in the budget and this was aimed at mobilising more loans which would burden the people in the long term.
Public debt which was ₹61,170 crore during the Congress regime grew significantly to touch ₹1.14 lakh crore in the last three years and the government had pegged payments on account of debt servicing along with payment of interest and principle at ₹15,790 crore, which was around 10 % of the total budget.
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On the other issues, he questioned the delay in filling the teaching and non-teaching vacancies in the universities and pointed out that 1504 sanctioned faculty posts were vacant, with the universities making do with contract teachers. Of the 56 departments in Osmania University, 42 do not have professors and 25 do not have associate professors.
The buildings were dilapidated, with students forced to perform ablutions in the open. The government did not need three years to address these issues, Mr. Reddy said demanding that the allocations for OU centenary celebrations be raised and toilets be constructed immediately.
Contractors unwilling
On the two-bedroom houses, Mr. Reddy questioned the government why no contractor was coming forward to build the houses as if they lacked faith in the government. He alleged that the Central subsidy on tractors was utilised to encourage defections into TRS at the mandal level, to which there were vociferous protests from the Treasury benches.
He went on to accuse the State government of promoting incompetent contractors for irrigation projects, of concealing the Central share in various projects including distribution of sheep, and trying to hide the facts about the state of affairs in the State. Finance Minister Eatala Rajender said there was no government which did not borrow in its efforts to carry out developmental programmes and pointed out that the Maharashtra has a ₹1.88 lakh crore debt.