- Abhijit Nath, NET Correspondent, Tripura
Agartala, March 24, 2022 : Tripura’s former chief minister and leader of opposition Manik Sarkar on Thursday alleged that the proposed budget in the 12th assembly session is anti-poor and anti-people.
The present government had declared a war against the youths as nothing has been highlighted in the budget of 2022-23 fiscal year and even, the government employees are being deprived without announcing Dearness Allowance (DA), he added.
In a press conference at the State Assembly premises here in Agartala on Thursday afternoon, Sarkar said “The fifth budget of the present government in Tripura is being placed on the floor of the assembly. We thought that the previous four budgets were prepared to address the weaknesses and shortcomings, to look after the public interest and to take steps to overcome the problems that people are facing. But since this is the last budget of the government, there was an expectation from many, surely there will be issues of public interest in the budget but from the first day it was seen that there is nothing for the common people. On the fifth day, the proposed budget had been passed through a voting system”.
“After tabling of the budget by the Deputy Chief Minister, who is the minister-in-charge of the Finance department, treasury and opposition benches had discussed the budget. Opposition mainly tried to focus on the budget where there were lacunas. We hoped that the Finance minister or the Chief Minister will take some positive steps in the budget, but there is no positive from their end”, he added.
Citing some left out points in the budget, Sarkar said “Working class people residing in rural and urban areas of the state had to depend on their daily earnings, but there is nothing mentioned about them in the budget. Not only this, MGNREGA and TUEP were started during Leftist regime. This government is proceeding towards closing down these two schemes which are benefiting rural and urban people immensely.”
“Tripura’s population is mostly covered with youths and among them, a major figure is unemployed. In this budget, there are 89 points. But the government is least bothered to spend a word for the youths regarding their government jobs or employment. Before assembly election in 2018, commitments were made of providing jobs in every house. During that time, we tried to state that this is insubstantial and cannot be materialized,” he added.
Sarkar also said that the present government had been claiming that the previous government did not leave any fund in the treasury, then how come the government proposed zero deficit budget in first two financial years and then two deficit budgets. Secondly, he further added that the previous government left Rs 3400 crore as market borrowing during their five years tenure and now, present government is leaving Rs 10500 crore as market borrowing. This proved that the treasury would completely empty at the end of five years.
