Terming the Union budget anti-people and anti-farmer, Telangana Congress president N Uttam Kumar Reddy today said there was nothing new in Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's budget speech.
"This budget has failed to provide any healing touch to the grievously injured demonetisation-hit economy. The Finance Minister made no mention of impact of demonetisation on various sectors and offered no compensations to either farmers, small and medium traders and businessman or even those who lost their livelihood since November 8, 2016," Reddy said.
By stating that "the effects of demonetisation are not expected to spill over into the next year," the Finance Minister himself has predicted the effect of demonetisation would not end soon, he claimed.
The Union Budget has "miserably failed' to address the concerns of farmers, he charged.
On the Centre fixing the target for agricultural credit in 2017-18 at Rs 10 lakh crore, he maintained that mere fixation of targets does not help farmers.
"For instance, he said that banks could not reach even 60 % of the target set for Rabi season. In Telangana alone, as against the target of Rs. 13,000 Crore, crop loans of just Rs. 7,500 crore were disbursed among farmers," Reddy said.
Stating the merger of Railway Budget with the budget was not historic, Reddy observed that Jaitley in his two-hour long speech made only a casual mention about Railway for less than three minutes without making any financial commitment to strengthen railway infrastructure.
Claiming that Telangana was "among the worst-hit states", the PCC president alleged the TRS government has failed to get anything concrete for the state from Centre.
"Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao blindly supported Modi Government on demonetisation issue. He acted like his spokesperson and Brand Ambassador. But the chief minister miserably failed in getting a good financial package for Telangana in union budget," he said.
Meanwhile, Telangana BJP president K Laxman described the budget as "revolutionary" and "bold".
Noting that the budget was a perfect blend of reforms, welfare and development, he said it laid the foundation for the comprehensive and rapid development of the country.
While it initiated reforms in political funding "which was never done earlier", the budget gave pre-eminence to important sections like farming and irrigation sector, the youth and the poor through various measures, he said.
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