Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today hailed the Union Budget 2016-17 as "pro-farmer, growth oriented, balanced and realistic" and thanked Finance Minister Arun Jaitley for allocating Rs 100 crore for the 350th birth anniversary celebrations of Guru Gobind Singh.
Calling it an "unprecedented" decision, Badal said the allocation for observing the tenth Sikh Guru's birthday celebrations was a matter of great pride and a "supreme gift" for Sikhs across the globe.
He welcomed the government's allocation of nearly Rs 36,000 crore for the farm sector and the raising of agri-credit target to Rs 9 lakh crore for the next fiscal, saying the measures would go a long way in ensuring well-being of the agricultural community.
He said it was a matter of great satisfaction and pride that the NDA government almost doubled the budgetary provisions for Agriculture sector in fiscal 2016-17 over the current financial year.
Badal also expressed happiness over the decision to encourage farmers to take up allied farming activities to supplement their income.
He hailed the decision of creating a dedicated long-term irrigation fund in NABARD with an initial corpus of Rs 20,000 crore to build irrigation facilities and initiation of a programme for sustainable management of ground water resources at an estimated cost of Rs 6,000 crore.
The Chief Minister also welcomed a health insurance scheme which protects one-third of India's population against hospitalisation expenditure and decision to provide BPL families with a cooking gas connection, supported by a government subsidy.
He said the move to set up a Higher Education Financing
Agency (HEFA) and of 1500 Multi Skill Training Institutes across the country was a step towards providing gainful employment to youth.
The Chief Minister said announcements like introduction of an animal wellness programme ('Pashudhan Sanjivani') and provision of Animal Health Cards ('Nakul Swasthya Patra'), creation of 'E-Pashudhan Haat' -- an e-market portal for connecting breeders and farmers, and a National Genomic Centre for indigenous breeds would go a long way in making allied farming sector more remunerative to farmers.
Badal also welcomed the announcement about developing 300 Rurban Clusters under the Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Rurban Mission, saying they would act as incubators of growth in rural areas by providing infrastructure and market access to farmers.
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Meanwhile, Punjab Congress chief Amarinder Singh today termed the Union Budget "most disappointing" and said it "failed" on everybody's expectations.
"The budget lacks vision and direction and has ended up as mere annual ritual without spelling out agenda for growth we have been hearing for the past two years," he said.
The PPCC president alleged the agriculture sector does not figure prominently in the Budget.
"There has been no provision for providing relief to the debt-ridden farmers driven to despair and suicides in so many states. Leave aside waiving off their debt, there is not even nominal relief or word of consolation for them," the MP said.
