Bankers, docs attend seminar on Budget

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, February 18

A seminar on “Analysis of Union Budget - 2018” was organised by the Chetna Manch at Shivalik Public School, Sector 41, Chandigarh, today. The event was attended by about 200 persons, including, bankers, academicians, defense personnel, doctors and agriculturists.

Prof Rajiv Khosla from the University School of Business, Chandigarh University, delivered the keynote address. Dr Khosla highlighted the fact that in the wake of lesser allocations towards strategic sectors like railways, defense, education and healthcare, present Union Budget is nothing more than a political manuscript.

He explicitly mentioned that poverty of innovative ideas was not letting the government think about generating revenues from the public sector units. “The government remains contended with either disinvestment or raising loans through banks, besides containing public expenditures. Need of the hour is to shun the stereotyped mindset and take rational steps to judiciously use the existing indigenous resources in the country,” he added.

Dr Varinder Sharma from the Institute for Development and Communication (IDC) stated that much-hyped 150 per cent minimum support price (MSP) for Kharif crops was turning out to be a hollow sloganeering in the absence of clarity of costs on which MSP is to be based. The seminar was presided over by PDS Uppal, AGM (retd), Reserve Bank of India.