JD(S) leader and former Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy on Saturday termed the Union Budget as the “most disappointing” and said there was no vision in it for accelerating economic growth.
He said the budget presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman was a “statistical jugglery” and many of the announced projects in the past were not implemented. “There is no information about how many old promises were fulfilled in the last five years by the BJP-led government,” Mr. Kumaraswamy said.
Mr. Kumaraswamy likened the proposal of agricultural land leasing with the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Act and said that it would be as inimical to the country’s future. The budgetary allocation for education had been cut by around ₹30,000 crore compared with the previous one, the JD(S) leader said.
Arguing that many schemes lacked clarity, he said of Kisan Udan scheme, “The scheme says the government will coordinate with the Civil Aviation Department, but what will they do really? Make farmers fly in the sky instead of walking on the roads?”
The former Chief Minister was also critical of there being no mention of measures for employment generation in the budget. There were no measures in the budget to contain slowdown of the economy, he added.
