Hyderabad, March
18, 2013: Describing the state budget for 2013-14 as a jugglery of figures, YSR
Congress has said that the government owes an apology for the goof up in the State
Assembly where Agriculture Minister read out a statement in the name of special
agriculture budget.
“The budget
figures are superfluous and do not reflect the priorities, as they do not have
a comparative analysis. The promise of achieving a higher growth rate is an act
of jugglery as there has been a negative growth in the core sectors during the
past two years,” party leaders DA Somayajulu and Sreekanth Reddy told reporters
here on Monday.
Taking objection
to the statement being read out by Agriculture Minister Kanna Lakshminarayana
in the name of agriculture budget is a gross misuse of the assembly time for
which the state owes an apology they said adding that there is no such
provision.
According to the
socio economic survey, for the past two years, agriculture has registered a
negative growth rate of 6.2 per cent and 2.6 per cent, yet the State is
promising a rosy picture trying to camouflage facts. The manufacturing sector
has also taken a beating with a negative growth rate of 4.25 per cent in organised
sector and 1.98 per cent in non-organised sector, while the production of
electricity and gas has also fallen down.
While all the
parameters of growth are on the slide showing figures and estimates in whopping
measure is only to confuse people and hide the actual situation, they said.
Budget has no credibility and vision
The Rs 1.63 lakh
crore budget presented by Finance Minister Anam Ramnarayan Reddy has no vision
and credibility as in the past the estimates were revised and targets were not
met, they said.
The growth rate
during YSR term was 9.6 per cent in 2005-06 and went up to 11.18 and 12.2 per
cent by in 2007-09 while it started falling from the next year as there was no
economic activity and revenue generation was poor, they said.
The government
claim that agriculture loans would be given at zero per cent interest is a
mirage as it is not practicable as the state has Rs 1.25 lakh crores as
agriculture loans, half of which are crop loans.
The government
has given blanket figures wherever it was inconvenient to mention the actuals
as in the case of housing. It has given the figure of 42 lakhs but did not
specify the period nor had given any break-up, they said adding that the
allocations for the next twelve months means very little unless the goals
achieved during previous years are not spelt out clearly.
The SC ST
Sub-Plan is a welcome sign but it has allowed the government to have
discretionary powers to spend funds for the non-divisible infrastructure which
is against the spirit of the legislation. YSR during his term had overcome this
by adopting the saturation mode and launching welfare schemes like Aarogyasri,
pensions, fees reimbursement and the like, they said.
We demand the
government to give subsidy to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) for diesel
used to generators in wake of the acute power cuts. The state has increased the
VAT to cottage, small and medium industries from 5 to 14 per cent which will
further hamper the industrial growth, they said.
The State has
not done justice to any sector and there are no resources to translate promises
into deeds as the growth rate is drastically falling with economic activity
slowing down. Vacancies for minorities were not filled so far and drinking
water schemes were confined to only Chittoor district, they said.
We demand the
government to take initiative and fix petro prices on a yearly basis instead of
handing over the price fixation mechanism to the oil companies, they said.
YSRCP slams coalition’s failure during first year
