Former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda Tuesday described the Budget presented by the BJP-JJP alliance government as a “jugglery of words” and “misleading numbers”.
“The Budget is a jugglery of words. The government is following the policy of ‘run ahead, leave behind’ as the Budget first shows inflated numbers but these are later revised and reduced,” Hooda, who is also the Leader of the Opposition in Haryana Vidhan Sabha, said.
Earlier, Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar proposed a Budget of Rs 1,77,255.99 crore for the financial year 2022-23, a rise of 15.6 per cent over the Budget size of Rs 1,53,384 crore in 2021-22.
Hooda claimed the government has cut economic progress and infrastructure budget by 3 per cent “even at a time of record unemployment”.
“Not only this, the budget for education has also been reduced as compared to last year. The amount of debt on the state has increased to about Rs 2.5 lakh crore which means that the expenditure on loan repayment has increased in this budget as compared to last year,” he said.
“It seems that the government is not interested in fulfilling the announcements made in the budget. For example, four new medical colleges have been announced by the government and the BJP has been continuously announcing the establishment of medical colleges in every district but no medical college was built by this government in the last seven-and-a-half-years,” he said, adding business has come to a standstill and employment growth has ended in the state due to anti-people policies of the government.
Hooda said in the last budget, the government announced to make film cities in Gurgaon and Pinjore but this promise has remained unfulfilled. “An announcement was also made to make Industrial Model Township in Sohna, but far from making a new IMT, the government could not even develop the IMTs created during the Congress government’s tenure,” Hooda said.
The former chief minister said the same is the case with the promise to build 4,000 new play schools which are nowhere to be seen on the ground. “The government had announced to distribute tablets to children from classes 8 to 12 but this has not been done even after one year. The promise of new recruitments in the health department is still hanging in the balance and about 10,000 posts are lying vacant in the health department even today. Similarly, about 50,000 posts are lying vacant in the education department,” Hooda said.
Hooda further accused the state government of cheating farmers. “For the past several years, the BJP has been making promises of doubling the income of farmers by 2022. In the last budget speech also, the commitment of doubling the income was expressed by the chief minister. But there is no mention of it anywhere in today’s budget,” he said.
“Similarly, the promise of giving Rs 7,000 per acre to farmers who grow crops other than paddy also proved to be a ‘jumla’. The promise to build 1,000 farmer ATMs also remains unfulfilled,” he said.
The Congress leader said farmers were given the facility of livestock insurance for just one hundred rupees during the Congress government but the BJP government called off that plan.
“Today, farmers have to pay Rs 3,000 to 4,000 for private insurance,” he said.
He alleged the biggest fraud in the budget has happened with the senior citizens. “The coalition came to power by promising old age pension of Rs 5100, but did not increase it in the budget”.
Hooda said employees of the state government have also been left disappointed. “Their biggest demand was to implement the old pension scheme but employees of Haryana will not be able to get the benefit like the employees of Rajasthan,” he said.
Haryana has the highest unemployment rate in the country today, he claimed. “Despite this, no provision was made in the budget which could help in employment generation,” he said.
Despite constant demand, no financial help was given to small and medium scale traders and industries to emerge from the economic impact of the Covid pandemic and recession, he said.
“According to the National Health Policy and new National Education Policy, the government should spend 8 per cent and 6 per cent of the GSDP on health services, and education, respectively. However, the government has announced only 4 per cent and 2 per cent, respectively for the two sectors,” he added.
On the state’s debt, senior Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala tweeted, from 1966 when Haryana was formed till 2014, the state’s total debt was Rs 70,931 crore which increased 215 per cent during the last seven years to Rs 2.23 lakh crore.
Indian National Lok Dal leader Abhay Singh Chautala said while the debt was mounting, development was not visible from the money borrowed. “To repay the loans of nearly Rs 56,000 crore, a loan of Rs 55,000 crore has already been taken by the alliance government,” Chautala said.
“ In the past seven years, the government took a loan of Rs 1.4 lakh crore but the same has not been spent for setting up the buildings like universities or stadiums,” Chautala said.
“Each year, a provision of Rs 100 crore is earmarked in the budget for Sutlej Yamuna Link canal, but no provision has been made in the budget for 2022-23,” he further said.
Haryana Congress president Kumari Selja said the CM has promised to set up government colleges in Sonipat and Bhiwani, “but he had been saying this for three years”.
“At present, 46 colleges in the state do not even have their own buildings, while the posts of principals are lying vacant in 127 colleges. The CM had talked about setting up of medical colleges in Bhiwani, Yamunanagar, Palwal, Mahendragarh and Jind districts in 2014 itself, which had also been mentioned in this Budget. The debt on Haryana has increased from Rs 70000 crore to Rs 2.5 lakh crore. The CM did not utter a single word in the assembly about how this debt would be repaid,” she said.