STATE TIMES NEWS
JAMMU: Dr Manohar Lal Sharma Senior Congress leader, former Minister and General Secretary PCC on Tuesday termed the State budget presented by the Finance Minister Dr Haseeb Drabu as directionless, anti-Youth, anti-farmer and anti-people. ‘There is no provision for the development of state as a whole and for mobilizing resources to generate employment and revenue in particular,” he added.
He opposed the policy and the programmes adopted by BJP-PDP government to overburden the common masses of the state and particularly the poor and middle classes of the society in this second budget. “There is no attention paid in the budget towards the major sectors such as agriculture, tourism, irrigation, rural development and development of bad pockets and far flung areas and water management. Farmers are facing wrath of government indifference as seeds, pesticides, fertilizers have become costly. Inflation is unprecedented and people are facing worst ever difficulties to counter souring prices”, he pointed out adding the present state budget with hike in VAT and Toll tax will further aggravate their problems.
He said that the commitments made by the Finance Minister in previous budget for waiver of farmers’ debts upto Rs 50,000 has proved to be another ‘Jumla’ of BJP.