Punjab Chief Minister Mr. Parkash Singh Badal today decried the Union budget 2012-13 as totally directionless, non progressive and unrealistic. Describing the budget proposals for 2012-13 as farce and illusionary, Mr Badal said “The proposed budgetary provisions are nothing but an ambiguous act which would badly effect the pockets of the working classes, the employees, small & medium traders and farmers”.
In a statement the Chief Minister said that it was highly deplorable on the part of the UPA government to further accentuate the woes of poor and middle class especially the common man to whom it claimed as the votary to safeguard rights of “Aam Aadmi” by presenting an anti poor and anti common man budget. He said that the proposed budget would further propel inflationary trends in the economy thereby making the life of common man far more miserable.
The hidden agenda of the UPA government to achieve high growth rate and bring fiscal reforms to make Indian Economy self sustainable had been fully exposed with the hollow proposals in the current budget, which would unleash a fresh bout of inflation much to the dismay of all sections of the society be it poor, middle, trade, industry, peasantry and others. Reacting sharply on the blatant neglect of agriculture sector Mr Badal said that a mere hike of 18% in the Agriculture sector was a peanut which would be unable to satiate the high expectations of the already beleaguered peasantry across the country. He said that it was ridiculous that Punjab being the major contributor in the national food pool to make our country self reliant in food production and achieving national food security has not been given any concession or incentives to reward for its enormous contribution. Mr Badal said that Punjab had a tremendous potential to herald a second Green Revolution through persification of agriculture, which was the need of the hour in order to ensure better remunerative prices to poor farmers but unfortunately the current budget proposals in the agriculture sector had once again brought the apathetic and anti farmer stance of UPA government to the fore.
Mr Badal further said that the budgetary proposals have also disappointed the salaried class who was expecting a major relief but in reality there hopes have been dashed top the ground with negligible respite in proposed Income Tax class slab. Likewise, the State’s industry had also a setback, as it was already suffering because of the continuing package of concessions to the neighboring States which had led to the exodus of industry from Punjab, said Mr. Badal.