Mysuru: Chief Minister Siddaramaiah described the Union Budget as an "incremental budget", at Mysuru on Wednesday evening.
He said, "It was said that the income tax revenue will increase after demonetisation and funds will be channelised to help the poor, weaker sections, farmers and women. Demonetisation has not impacted black money holders, the rich, corporate bodies and corrupt, but has affected small businessmen, farmers, small-scale industrialists and labourers. There was some hope that there would be something to help them or console them. But it has been proved a myth. It is not a growth-oriented budget as nothing has been done to generate jobs. Though there have been many statements, there are no specific policies or allocation of funds to support them."
He said, "It was said that demonetisation will increase revenue, remove black money, fake notes, reduce corruption and put an end to parallel economy. But there is no growth in the revised estimate of income tax revenue. It was 17 percent last year and it is the same this year too. When demonetisation was announced, currency notes worth Rs 17.9 lakh crore were in circulation and the banks received Rs 15.44 lakh crore, which is 86 percent of the total. It was said that fake notes in circulation was Rs 400 crore, which is 0.0022 percent. So far, there has not been any mention of fake money or black money received. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said that he would get black money from foreign countries and deposit Rs 15 lakh in each person's account, but has not deposited even 15 paise. They asked us to wait. Even after 900 days and three budgets, 'achhe din abhi tak nahi aaye'. Mr Modi announced demonetisation only to shift the focus of the people."
He said, "There are no big programmes to help farmers, and there is there is nothing to help farmers in states that have been affected by drought for the past two years. I had urged the Prime Minister to waive off half the bank loans of state farmers in nationalised and commercial banks, which is around Rs 30,000-35,000 crore, assuring him that on our part, we would do the same in cooperative banks. But it has not happened. Also, we had expected Rs 1 lakh crore under NREGA to create employment in drought-hit rural areas to prevent migration, but it has only been increased from Rs 38,500 crore to Rs 48,000 crore. Agriculture credit was Rs 9 lakh last year, which has been increased to Rs 10 lakh."
He said, "There are no prominent changes in major schemes. Improving rural roads has not been a priority, as the fund allotted under the Pradhan Manthri Gram Sadak Yojana has remained the same as last year's at Rs 19,000 crore. The allocation for National Highways has been increased marginally from Rs 57,776 crore to Rs 64,000 crore. The railway budget has been increased from Rs 1,27,000 to Rs 1,31,000 Crore. Metro rail policy has not been announced and no money has been allotted to back it up too."
Stepmotherly attitude towards Karnataka: Dr G. Parameshwar
The Union government's budget proved yet again that they seem to have utter disliking towards non-NDA ruled states like us. This is nothing but step-motherly attitude towards Karnataka. We had hoped that the Union government would at least announce some schemes for Bengaluru, but even that has failed to catch their attention. Whatever happens in Bengaluru does become international news, but I do not understand why it did not even find a mention. The budget can only be described as visionless and has miserably failed to address issues related to farmers, middleclass and various other sections. The union government should have been sympathetic to at least those 12,000 farmers who committed suicide over the last one year. The union government should have taken steps to announce few relief measures to these deceased farmers. The Railway budget, which was part of this budget for the first time, too has failed to strike the right chord with passengers.
