Finance Minister Buggana Rajendranath Reddy delivering the budget speech in the Legislative Assembly on Wednesday, as Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy looks on.
Telugu Desam Party MLCs Bhumireddy Ramagopal Reddy, Vepada Chiranjeevi Rao and Kancharla Srikanth and MLA Bendalam Ashok said the vote on account presented by Finance Minister Buggana Rajendranath Reddy in the Legislative Assembly on Wednesday did not lay down a roadmap to solve the crisis in the agriculture sector and the issue of drought was left unaddressed even as 500-plus mandals were reeling under unprecedented drought that compounded the woes of farmers.
There was no talk of crop insurance, and the Polavaram project was confined to rhetoric. They stated that Mr. Rajendranath Reddy painted a rosy picture of the finances by juggling figures, but people were not ignorant to get carried away by his election-oriented speech.
State BJP chief spokesperson Lanka Dinakar said the budget was silent about wealth creation and the steep increase in debt to more than ₹12 lakh crore, while the budget size went up from ₹1.80 lakh crore in 2019-20 to ₹2.86 crore, reflecting the State’s precarious financial position.
He stated in a release that the high revenue and fiscal deficits also exposed the government’s inept handling of its finances. Besides, the increase in loans of various corporations and the lack of regular audits were a matter of concern.
Election speech: CPI(M)
CPI (M) State secretary V. Srinivasa Rao said Mr. Rajendranath Reddy’s budget speech was like an election speech and contained nothing substantive for the welfare of the masses. He pointed out that the budget was silent about the construction of the capital city Amaravati and Polavaram project, securing Special Category Status etc., and did not outline a strategy to sort out major issues faced by the State.
The budget came as a big disappointment for the working classes as there was no assurance to increase their wages. Overall, the budget lacked proper direction, he observed.
‘False impression’
Jai Bharat National Party (JBNP) president and former CBI joint director V.V. Lakshminarayana commented that the budget was nothing but an account of the debt that piled up during the last five years, and questioned if the distribution of benefits under various schemes amounted to development.
He said Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy was under the false impression that he got poverty eradicated by giving away benefits worth about ₹4.25 lakh crore through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT). The government borrowed huge sums and the Chief Minister distributed the money, but he must be knowing that the burden of interest fell on people.
The DSC notification was also an election stunt, he asserted, and asked why the number of white ration cards was not coming down if the Finance Minister’s claim that the State made a commendable progress was true.