Budget Full Of Inaccuracies & Illusory: Congress

Alleging that there were more fallacies than facts in the TRS government's budget for 2017-18, Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader K Jana Reddy said that the budget was confusing, illusory, and aimed at making people live in false hopes.

Participating in the debate on the budget in the Legislative Assembly on Thursday, Reddy opined that the programs of the government should be in tune with the aspirations of the people. For this, the ruling party needed to consider the suggestions given by the opposition parties, too, and initiate steps to implement them.

It was not correct for the ruling party to relegate the opposition parties to listening to whatever it said in the house. He said that the Congress had waged a big war for the creation of Telangana, and it was not proper for the state government to suppress the voice of the party now. He asked the TRS to extend its cooperation to the opposition parties to see that meaningful debates took place in the house.

"The people will think that the opposition parties are hand in glove with the ruling party in case the opposition parties do not question the government. But the government is saying that the opposition parties will need to prove any allegations they make. How is this possible?" he questioned sarcastically.

Reddy said that there were more assets than debts in the state from 1956 to 1994, but that the debts had doubled from 1994 to 2000. He said that the per capita income of the state was more than national average till 2014. But now there was growth only in industrial units, and the agricultural sector was declining. The food output in 2013-14 was 107 lakh tons, but had reduced to 72 lakh tons in 2014-15, and further to 51 lakh tons in 2015-16.

He expressed concern at this saying that the conditions in the state seemed to indicate that the agricultural sector was in crisis.

He said that there was nothing wrong in taking on more debt for developing the state, but that development would stagnate in case the debts were more than the assets being created.