HYDERABAD: TPCC president N Uttam Kumar Reddy termed the budget presented by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday as highly disappointing, especially for Telangana. In a statement, Uttam said that barring a few changes in the income tax slabs, there was nothing new in the budget.
"There is nothing in the budget for unemployed youth, farmers, women, and students. The sectors that generate jobs have completely been ignored," he said. The budget speech made no mention of the rising unemployment rate in the country. "The Finance Minister did not propose any measure to address the unemployment problem," he said.
He further said that Sitharaman refrained from speaking about the rising inflation in the country. He said that the Central government did not specify as to how it planned to double the income of farmers by the year 2022 and that there was no mention of rising farmer suicides.
The Congress leader added, "The previous budgets used to be a serious document with data and statistics. It had complete clarity on the estimated revenues and expenditures. This time, it appears as though the Budget speech was not prepared by economists, but by political speechwriters."
The Finance Minister gave no clarity on the devolution of taxes to States and when their pending dues would be cleared, he said. "Telangana has been facing injustice since 2014-15 and not a single promise made in the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act has been honoured in the Budget," Uttam said.
"While the TRS government failed to make an effective representation, the BJP government at the Centre neglected Telangana - so much so that it does not exist on India’s map for them," he added.