Both the Opposition parties in the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) council — Congress and Janata Dal (S) — have slammed the 2013-14 budget that was presented by Mayor D. Venkatesh Murthy on Friday.
Calling it a “spill-over budget”, Opposition Leader M.K. Gunashekar charged the Ruling Party (BJP) for not following the government’s direction and presenting a “realistic budget”. The government had specifically directed the BBMP to prepare the budget based on the previous year’s revenue generation and not on estimated revenue.
“With just eight months left in this fiscal, the Ruling Party has once again presented an inflated budget. The BJP has created a record by presenting budgets that cannot be implemented completely, for the fourth time in a row.”
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He blasted the BJP for not having any vision for the city and said that there was no long-term development plan in the budget. Lamenting the lack of transparency in preparation the budget, he said guidelines, prescribed under the Karnataka Local Fund Authorities Fiscal Responsibilities Act, 2003, were being violated in the BBMP. “As per the Act, the BBMP should meet with citizens’ groups and non-governmental organisations at least twice and seek suggestions regarding the budget. This has not been followed for the past four years,” he charged.
Janata Dal (S) Floor Leader Thimme Gowda was equally caustic, describing the budget as “anti-people”. With no concrete plans or projects, he said it read like a draft copy instead of the real thing. He also claimed the BBMP would once again not be able to achieve even 50 per cent of the budget proposals in the remaining eight months.
Both leaders said the BJP had not kept any of the promises made in the election manifesto.
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Meanwhile, Ruling Party Leader N. Nagaraju maintained that this year’s budget was “realistic”. “The budget has covered road development, improvement of parks, gives priority to improving the green cover and has many welfare schemes,” he said.