Shimla: Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu has termed the Union Budget as disappointing and contrary to the expectations of the common man.
He said the Budget was a mere artful trickery to achieve the desired ends. “There is nothing in this Budget for any section of society.”
Sukhu said the Budget has not talked about ways to control inflation and unemployment.
The Chief Minister said the people were waiting for the “achhe din” as lured by the BJP in 2014.
The Union government has lost its only opportunity to fulfill announcements as per the promises before the Lok Sabha elections to be held in 2024.
“The Budget lacks the vision on the employment sector and no reasonable thinking has been made in this direction. There is no mention of urban employment and farmers who were expecting a raising loan limit. There was no announcement for subsidies on the farming tools or fertilizers.”
Besides, there was no addition on MGNREGA allocation, thereby completely ignoring the rural employment avenues.
“Nothing has been projected for the state in the Union Budget. There is no allocation for expansion of the rail infrastructure and for the national highways. Even the changes in the income tax slabs were not up to the expectation of the people as it has not given any relief to the middle class,” the Chief Minister said in a statement.
“The middle class is totally disheartened and displeased, as they expected more relief in tax slabs. This is a Budget to get the rich richer and the poor poorer,” he said, adding “it was a pro-rich budget”.
He said no special grant has been announced for the states under debt burden. “Not only Himachal, there were many other states sailing in the same boat and reeling under debt. We have inherited the debt burden of around Rs 75,000 crore from the previous government, besides there was a liability of paying arrears to employees and pensioners amounting to nearly than Rs 11000 crore.”
He said there was no mention about the reimbursement of GST since June 2022 in the Budget to the small hill states.
A seasoned journalist with over two decades of experience, Vishal writes on a wide range of subjects which include biodiversity, climate change and links between environment & development. He also covers politics and other developments in Punjab and Himachal Pradesh. He lives in Chandigarh & Shimla.
