Siddaramaiah flays budget

Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah today flayed the union budget tabled by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley saying that it lacked the vision and mission and is a document of empty assurances.
Speaking to reporters here, he said that the budget clearly showed that it was prepared in view of next year's Lok Sabha elections.
"It lacked the vision and mission and is a document of empty assurances. The budget makes lofty announcements without making financial provisions to fulfil them. There is no budgetary allocation for the Centre's ambitious scheme of housing for all by 2022," he said.
However, he welcomed the announcement of sub-urban railway project in the budget.

The sub-urban railway with Metro Rail will assist in tackling the traffic woes of the city.
Siddaramaiah said the budget attempted to implement the Swaminathan committee report on agriculture sector as promised in the BJPs Lok Sabha election manifesto.

However, it failed to discuss about creating agriculture market and agriculture produce procurement policy.
The Centre has announced to procure tur daal at Rs 5,400 per quintal whereas the farmers wanted Rs 6,500.
Karnataka government was already giving Rs 6,000 for each qunital of tur dhaal it procured, he said.