Residents give thumbs down, term it ‘hollow’

Manav Mander

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, June 20

The maiden Budget presented by the Congress Government in the Vidhan Sabha today has failed to impress the city people. People have termed the Budget as “hollow” and “unfriendly”.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has termed the Budget as a cruel joke with the people of the state as the government has not fulfilled any of the promises made during the elections and has completely shattered the hopes of people.

AAP senior leader and member of the State Media Team Darshan Singh Shankar, while reacting on the Budget, said the government had completely backtracked from all promises and now people were feeling cheated.

He said the Congress had promised complete waiver of farmers’ debts by filling forms during the elections, but now a provision for only Rs 1,500 crore had been made in the Budget against the total debts of over Rs 80,000 crore.

He said suicides of 90 debt-ridden farmers in three months after the formation of the government could not move them. The government had also backtracked from the promise with the elderly, widows, destitute children and handicapped persons of enhancing the pensions to Rs 2,500 per month by only presenting a provision of only Rs 750 per month.

Reacting to the state government’s Budget proposals on health, Dr Arun Mitra, senior vice-president, Indian Doctors for Peace and Development (IDPD), said there is no reference regarding updating civil hospitals to the modern super-specialty level with provisions of modern gadgets such as CT scan, MRI scan and ventilators.

“Patients will still have to go to private corporate hospitals for treatment because there is no mention of coverage limit in the universal health insurance scheme. There is no mention of stopping outsourcing and providing health coverage in government’s own centres. There is no mention of increase in the expenditure on prevention of communicable diseases. There is no mention of regularisation of jobs of doctors and paramedical staffs working as contractual workers. No mention has been made about increase in the salary and regularisation of jobs of workers in the NHM,” said Dr Arun Mitra.

Senior citizen Santok Singh, while commenting on the Budget, said the promise of providing one job to each house also proved as a false promise.

“The government proposed employment to only 3 lakh youth during 5 years, whereas assurance wad made to around 20 lakh households by providing cards with signatures of state Congress president Amarinder Singh and national vice-president Rahul Gandhi. The promise of providing a stipend of Rs 2,500 per month to each unemployed youth also fell flat in the Budget,” he said.

A senior doctor from a government hospital said the government had made another important promise of completely eradication drugs from Punjab within a period of four weeks of the formation of the government, but sadly no provision had been made for de-addiction centres to treat drug victims.

Dr Manoj Sobti, member of the Punjab Medical Council, said no provision had been made regarding health insurance for those living Below Poverty Line. Instead of announcing new colleges, focus should have been to upgrade the existing ones and provide them with facilities and infrastructure.