BENGALURU: Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has termed the union budget as a ‘directionless, visionless budget, which is not growth-oriented.’Speaking to mediapersons here on Thursday, Siddaramaiah said the budget was prepared keeping parliamentary elections in mind and many big announcements were made without actually making allocation for implementation of those programmes. “We had lots of expectations from the budget, especially on farm loan waiver. But Finance Minister Arun Jaitely has disappointed the people of the state,’’ Siddaramaiah said.
Karnataka had waived farm loans taken from cooperative banks and we had requested the Centre for waiver of farm loans taken from nationalised banks as farmers in the state are in distress, he said.
Siddaramaiah said no budgetary allocation has been made for many big announcements like health insurance scheme and housing scheme. Health insurance scheme announced in the last year’s budget is yet to be implemented and the one announced in this budget too is unlikely to be implemented as they have not made any allocation for it, he added. “Even for their ambitious housing scheme, they have not made any allocation and how will they implement it?” he questioned.
Siddaramaiah said that people of the state are disappointed with the budget as it has nothing special for them. “It’s all about slogans. They only talk about giving emphasis to agriculture sector and taking measures to help farmers. In reality, they have not done anything. Minimum Support Price (MSP) provided to procure food grains from farmers too is not upto farmers’ expectations. For procuring tur, the Centre has given Rs 5,400 per quintal when farmers were asking for Rs 6,500. The state government is adding another Rs 600 and is procuring tur at Rs 6,000 per quintal,” he said.“Now, they talk about increasing MSP and they will only remain a promise,” he added.
The budget has failed to address the major issue like unemployment, the Chief Minister said.“The Centre had assured of creating 10 crore jobs in five years and going by their promise, by now, they were supposed to create eight crore jobs. We all know what they have done,’’ he said.Siddaramaiah welcomed announcement on digitisation of agriculture produce marketing committees. The Centre has replicated similar initiative taken by the state, he added.
Fuel price
The Chief Minister said even though the crude oil prices in the international market has come down by almost half, the Centre has not passed on the benefit to consumers. “Given the drastic reduction in crude oil price, fuel price should be around Rs 25 per litre. Have they done it? “ CM said.