THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Senior Congress leader VD Satheesan has come down heavily on the budget recommendation to extract more revenue from the automobile and realty sectors which were already hit hard by the economic slowdown.
While participating in the discussion on the state budget 2020-21, Satheesan said the choices of Finance Minister Thomas Isaac were perplexing and would further worsen the sectors. He said it was for the first time in the state’s history that a finance minister had cut down the annual plan size by Rs 3,000 crore. This, according to Satheesan, showed the far Right-wing leaning of Isaac. “By subverting the plan process, you are following the far Right-wing policies of the BJP government at the Centre. Both of you are interested in flaunting projects and not plan,” he said.
Satheesan said that the figures on revenue receipts and revenue deficit in the previous budget were a far cry from the revised estimate. The revenue receipts of Rs 1.10 lakh crore and revenue deficit of Rs 8,770 crore got changed to Rs 99,000 crore and Rs 17,474 crore respectively, he said.
Though Rs 6,000 crore was announced for Kochi, the actual receipt would be only Rs 2.5 crore, he said.
Former minister V S Sivakumar said the capital district was totally neglected in the budget. Not just this, most announcements in the previous budget for projects in Thiruvananthapuram remained on paper, he said.