CAPT AMARINDWER HAILS BUDGET AS PEOPLE-FRIENDLY & AIMED AT MULTI-SECTORAL GROWTH

Chandigarh, March 24: Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Saturday hailed the state’s Budget 2018-19 as a milestone one, with its focus on multi-sectoral growth, and expressed the confidence that it would put the state on the path of high growth.

Dismissing as totally unfounded and misleading the statements of SAD-BJP on the budget, the Chief Minister told mediapersons this budget would lead the state back on the path of growth and prosperity to bring it out of the vicious cycle of fiscal mess into which the previous government had plunged it.

Captain Amarinder challenged the Akalis and the BJP to list even one tangible success they had achieved in terms of development and prosperity of the state during their decade-long misrule. They had completely ruined the state’s economy with their ill-conceived policies, he pointed out, adding that the current budget was not only progressive, balanced and people-friendly but provided a roadmap to put the derailed economy on the track by ensuring all-round development of the state.

The current budget had taken due care of all sectors of state, be agriculture, industry, health, education, employment generation or, above all, the welfare of disadvantaged sections of the society, said the Chief Minister.

Captain Amarinder recalled that his government’s maiden budget last year had been an endeavour to improve the fiscal health of the State through meticulous long term-planning to restore financial discipline in line with the provisions of FRBM Act-2003, which the previous SAD-BJP Government had blatantly violated to pursue its vested interests.

Taking a step forward, this year’s growth-oriented budget presented by Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal would further consolidate the recovery that the state had started showing in the shape of its improved financial health, he added.

The Chief Minister said that this Budget would prove to be a milestone to achieve the target of fiscal consolidation as mandated by the 14th Finance Commission for all the states, besides putting Punjab in the orbit of high-growth trajectory.