Budget a big disappointment for ryots, women, youth: BRS

The Opposition criticizes the Congress government's interim budget for its lack of funds for farmers, women, and unemployed youth.

hyderabad

The Opposition BRS has termed the interim budget presented by the Congress government as a big disappointment to farmers, women and unemployed youth, as it has “no matching allocation of funds to meet the demand in tune with the promises made”.

Stating that allocation of funds was meagre to all sectors, BRS leader and former Minister of Finance T. Harish Rao remarked on the Assembly premises on Saturday that “the Congress government has started its Praja Palana with broken promises”. The Budget had nothing for farmers as there was no required allocation of funds for Rythu Bharosa, Rythu Bima, farm loan waiver, bonus to crops, farm mechanisation and others.

On the allocation of ₹19,746 crore to agriculture sector, he said keeping aside ₹3,000 crore for establishment, only about 17,000 crore would be available for schemes related to farmers. He explained that ₹22,500 crore would be required for Rythu Bat ₹15,000 per acre for about 1.5 crore acres. Similarly, farm loan waiver up to ₹2 lakh per farmer would need ₹40,000 crore, and Rythu Bima to farmers and tenants would require ₹2,000 crore.

Further, bonus promised by the Congress for paddy, jowar, soybean, maize, redgram and others would need ₹15,000 crore. All put together, the farm sector would need allocation of ₹82,000 crore taking into consideration all promises made by the ruling party, Mr. Harish Rao stated and alleged that the farmers were deceived squarely by the Congress.

He sought to know the government did not make legislations on implementing the six guarantees at it had promised. It was just biding time with white papers and inquiries and mudslinging on the previous government. It was also making false claims of fulfilling some guarantees as the mahalaxmi-gruhalaxmi guarantee includes free bus travel, gas cylinder for ₹500 and ₹2,500 monthly support.

The BRS leader said ₹8,000 would be required for Gruha Jyothi against the allocation of ₹2,400 crore as there were 90 lakh below poverty line households and at least ₹27,000 crore would be needed to give monthly support even for 90 lakh women aged above 18 years, one each in every BPL household. There was also nothing on unemployment allowance.