VIJAYAWADA: APCC president YS Sharmila Reddy criticised the coalition government’s first Budget, calling it visionless and a betrayal of election promises, particularly affecting farmers, students, women, and unemployed youth due to insufficient funding for key schemes like Annadata Sukhibhava and Deepam 2.
She pointed out funding shortfalls, including Rs 6,300 crore allocated for the Annadata Sukhibhava scheme instead of the Rs 11,000 crore required. She also accused the TDP-JSP-BJP alliance of cutting funds for Talli Vidya and free bus travel for women.
Congress Working Committee member Gidugu Rudraraju slammed the Budget as a “deceptive numbers game”, accusing it of being filled with self-praise and attacks on the previous regime while lacking a clear development plan and failing to fulfil the “Super Six” promises.
Communist Party of India (CPM) state secretary V Srinivas Rao said the Budget would burden people, criticising the government’s plan to increase borrowing despite existing debt. He claimed several schemes were only on paper and flagged job insecurity due to the scrapping of Andhra Pradesh Corporation For Outsourced Services. He also pointed out a percentage-wise reduction in allocations for irrigation.
Echoing similar concerns, CPI state secretary K Ramakrishna accused the coalition government of pushing the state into a debt trap, just as it had criticised the previous YSRCP regime for doing.
He expressed disappointment over the lack of major allocations for agriculture, water resources, and price stabilisation, stating that tenant farmers were ignored, and the promise of free bus travel for women was forgotten.