Economist and Balurghat MLA of Bharatiya Janata Party criticized the State Budget by terming it ‘just declarations’ at the Assembly today.
According to the former chief economic advisor to the central government, the state budget is just about tall promises.
Citing data on healthcare and education, the BJP MLA heavily criticized the state government for the prevailing poor condition of the state in these areas.
“West Bengal’s own revenue is not increasing sufficiently. West Bengal is heavily dependent on the Centre for revenue. In West Bengal, for Rs 100, Rs 55 comes from the central government. This dependence on the Centre is very high as compared to several other states. In Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, this dependence is only 40 per cent whereas ours is 55 per cent. The question would be why is the own revenue of these states higher? The reason is that the development in these states is far ahead,” said Mr Lahiri.
Raising questions about the announcement of three per cent hike in DA by the state finance minister, Chandrima Bhattacharya, yesterday, the noted economist said, “I did know how to announce the budget in half-an-hour on the treadmill. Things included in the budget require approval of the cabinet and not that the CM sends a small piece of paper which had something written on it and the decision was announced. This is a dangerous scenario. Some of our party workers are claiming that it was done because the High Court has asked to do so and they got scared that there would be a contempt of court.”
Calling the announcements on ‘Rastashree’ about redevelopment of rural roads a desperate bid, the Balurghat MLA said, “On one side they claim that they do not have money. On the other hand, yesterday they announced Rastashree and pension. This is a desperate bid. When they leave, it would be a ‘scorched earth policy’ and there will be nothing left.”