STATE TIMES NEWS
JAMMU: Former Minister Abdul Gani Vakil, in a statement issued on Friday, termed the announcement of the pay hike as per Seventh Pay Commission (PC) recommendations from April 2018 a crude joke and called this year’s budget presented by Finance Minister Haseeb Drabu in state assembly a jugglery of words and figures. Vakil said if the budget has been presented for the financial year 2017-18 the pay hike as per Seventh Pay Commission recommendation for the government employees had to be announced in this year’s budget it should have been implemented from April 2017 and now if the pay as per Seventh Pay Commission recommendation has to be increased from April 2018 then Finance Minister has to announce the same in next financial year’s budget. Saying that Finance Minister is tending to appease the government employees by falsifying its commitments, Vakil said there is nothing new in the regularization process of 61,000 casual labourers. He said committee on regularisation of 61,000 casual labourers has constituted by the previous government and is already working on it. He said the process of regularisatiion of 61,000 casual labours will take years together.
Expressing his dismay over the neglect of the horticulture sector in this year’s budget Vakil said though Kashmir produces 20 lakh metric tones of apple but it has a market of only 9 lakh metric tones. He asked the government to clarify its stand on exploring the possibilities of identifying market for the rest of the 11 lakh metric tones of apple. Saying that the state is purchasing mutton worth crores of rupees from other state but the government is yet to explore the possibilities of establishing its own sheep breeding farms.
Saying that though state has the potential of increasing its production of mutton by establishing sheep breeding farms across the state the government this year also has not mentioned about any financial allocation for the expansion of the sheep breeding farms in the State.