Jagan slams Govt for meager allocations

HYDERABAD: Citing various figures and statistics, leader of the opposition YS Jaganmohan Reddy has tried to discredit the government over meagre allocations for farm loan waiver and unemployment dole and also expressed apprehension that like in the past chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu may go back on his poll promises.

Initiating the discussion on the AP budget for 2014-15, Jagan described the budget as disappointing and misleading.

'Crores of farmers, DWCRA members and unemployed youth have been looking forward for the budget, expecting the government to make sizeable allocations for implementation of promises like farm loan and DWCRA loan waiver, unemployment dole among others. However, only meagre allocations were made for the purpose,'' he said.

Pointing out at the budget estimates and revised budget estimates were one and the same, Jagan said all the government did was to do a 'cut and paste' job.

Jagan wanted to know why the ruling party, which was aware of what the financial position of the residuary state would be, had made plethora of promises. 'However, now it is trying to find excuses of getting out of the promises made. During elections, Naidu had assured to waive all the loans and promised a job or unemployment allowance to every household,' Jagan said.

He wondered what made the government change the cutoff date for loan waiver from March 31, 2014 to December 31, 2013. ''Many had taken loans, assuming the government would waive their loans during that time,'' he said. He wondered how the government expects to implement the loan waiver scheme with meagre allocations.

'It had allocated Rs 599 crore for interest free loans, while the required amount is Rs 2,550 crore. In case of pensions, allocations were far less than the required amount,' he said and demanded the government to make public the PRC report and implement the recommendations. Pointing out that only Rs 4,500 crore was allocated for the ongoing irrigation projects, he asked how does the government plan to bring 15 lakh more acres under irrigation.

YSR regime far better

The government is only trying to divert the attention of the people from its failures to keep the promises made by making allegations against previous regimes, the opposition leader alleged.

'There are different parameters by which the success of any regime is calculated,' Jagan said and gave 96 marks to YSR regime and only 57 marks to Naidu's regime citing GSDP and other parameters.