West Bengal Finance Minister Asim Dasgupta today welcomed the enhanced provision for health, family welfare and education in the Budget, but said the proposals have fallen short of addressing the two basic issues of unemployment and inflation.
Dasgupta said apart from increased allocation for health and family welfare, the proposal to increase the remuneration of Anganwadi workers and helpers, a provision of Rs 50 crore for Aligarh Muslim University at Murshidabad and a debt relief proposal for handloom weavers were welcome.
He also praised allocation for celebration of Rabindranath Tagore's 150th birth anniversary.
"However, the two main issues affecting the common people have remained unadressed -- unemployment and inflation," Dasgupta said.
"It is a matter of concern that central Budgetary allocation under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme has actually been reduced to Rs 40,000 crore from Rs 40,100 crore and that under rural development from Rs 89,340 crore to Rs 87,000 crore," Dasgupta said.
He said although the central allocation for Green Revolution in eastern India is welcome, the central allocation for the Ministry of Agriculture has been reduced to Rs 13,662 crore from Rs 14,049 crore.
"We also demand to reconsider the proposal for converting Foreign Institutional Investment into mutual funds because that will create sources of instability in our domestic market," Dasgupta said.
He proposed the state government and the Centre work in a coordinated way to unearth black money.
