Budget fraud on people – SAD

(Parminder Dhindsa says facts misstated. No funds allocated for govt employees or social welfare schemes)

Chandigarh, February 18 – The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) today said the Congress government had committed fraud with the people like it did in its election manifesto by coming out with a budget which relied on heavy borrowing but delivered nothing to the common man.

Terming the budget as a farce, former finance Minister Parminder Singh Dhindsa said the Congress government and finance minister Manpreet Badal had played a cruel joke with the people by misstating facts and refusing to keep aside funds for fulfilling commitments to the people be it farmers, youth or government employees. “The budget also discriminates against the under privileged by not allocating appropriate funds for social welfare schemes”.

Giving details, Mr Dhindsa said there was no provision in budget for implementing the Pay Commission. He said funds had also not been allocated for giving DA arrears of employees. “Pensions and even the Shagan scheme will suffer because appropriate provisions have not been made. Even SC students have suffered because the State misused central funds meant for post matric scholarship scheme for two years”.

Stating that the FM could not befool the people that his government had reduced petrol and diesel State taxes, the Akali leader said the fact was that Punjab was the last to reduce these taxes when every other State had given this relief to its people. “The government should refund the money taken unfairly from the people”, he added.

Mr Dhindsa said the budget figures suggested that the government had borrowed an additional Rs 30,000 crore for budgetary funding in the last two financial years and would borrow Rs 20,000 crore more in the third year of its term. He said this was unprecedented with the SAD-BJP government borrowing only Rs 90,000 crore for budgetary funding during a period of ten years.

The former FM said this rampant borrowing itself proved that no targets had been set for fiscal consolidation. He said besides this previous budget figures don’t match and no attempt had been made to balance revenue and expenditure figures.

Mr Dhindsa said in a bid to cover up the misstatements it was making, the Congress government had invented a new word “unfunded gap” and pegged it at Rs 2,323 crore. “This term does not exist in economic parlance and the FM should explain why he has not tried to match revenue and expenditure figures. He also questioned the FM as to what he would spend if he did not have any income as no attempt had been made to mobilize resources.