The BJP today dubbed the Himachal Pradesh budget for 2015-16 as directionless which belied the hopes of people, especially the unemployed youth and employees.
"No effort has been made for resource mobilisation and 60 per cent of funds are grants from the Centre," leader of the opposition Prem Kumar Dhumal said.
He said Congress had promised unemployment allowance in its manifesto but the government has backed out while no policy statement has been made regarding retirement age of employees and both the sections are feeling cheated.
"Budget is merely jugglery of words and economic indicators have shown declining trend," he said, and rued that nothing has been announced for reviving tourism industry, which has seen a drop in footfall of foreigners from about 5 lakh in 2011 to 3.9 lakh in 2014.
Dhumal said that the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) which was 14.8 per cent in 2011 and had slided to 12.6 per cent, growth rate has reduced from 8 per cent to 6.5 per cent, non tax revenue has shown a decline by Rs 507 crore from Rs 1,915 crore in 2011 to Rs 1,408 crore, capital expenditure has decreased from 5.6 per cent to 4.1 per cent while the plan expenditure decreased from 5.93 per cent to 4.62 per cent.
The budget is silent on resource mobilisation and the government was banking heavily on loans to meet the deficit.
State BJP president Satpal Singh Satti said the figures given in the budget refute the charges of the state government that Himachal has lost the status of special category state as the breakup of revenue receipts of the government clearly mention that 50.32 per cent of total revenue would come through grant-in-aid from the Centre while 16.33 per cent would be from share in central taxes share and 17 per cent revenue deficit would be met through borrowings.
