Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Monday said the Union budget carried a tale of neglect of Kerala, besides imposition of unbearable burden through many of its proposals.
In an article released for publication here, Mr. Vijayan did not mince words in depicting Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s maiden budget as discriminatory towards Kerala. There was no meaningful allocation for the traditional industrial sectors such as coir, cashew and bamboo, which had got less allocation when compared to last year’s budget proposals.
It turned away from Kerala’s demand for a minimum support price of ₹200 for rubber, besides ignoring the Spices Board and the Coconut Board.
One of the main demands of Kerala for permission to mobilise funds from the capital markets over and above its ceiling on borrowings to meet its commitments on rebuilding the State in the post-flood phase went unheeded.
The Central government did not even bother to examine the recommendations of the Susheel Kumar Modi committee’s recommendations on permitting States to mobilise additional funds.
The budget had virtually cold-shouldered the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), thus indicating the general approach of the budget and its tilt towards big corporate bodies.
Farm sector
The agriculture sector had not even got a cursory glance in the budget either in terms of support price for agriculture produce, waiver of farm loans or other market intervention programmes.
The proposal to increase petrol and diesel prices would set a new inflationary trend that could find several social security measures falling by the wayside.
The proposal to set up a social stock exchange was intended to commercialise social security programmes, Mr. Vijayan said.
Listing out the various areas which had been left out by the Centre as far as Kerala was concerned, Mr. Vijayan highlighted the raw deal that was given to railway development.
“The list of discrimination and neglect is a long one. The Budget has failed to address core issues such as unemployment and the fall in industrial and agriculture growth,” he said.
