GUWAHATI: The first state budget of the new BJP-led government under Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma evoked contrasting reactions, with the ruling party leaders and cabinet ministers hailing it as “people-centric” but opposition parties calling it “visionless and anti-poor”.
Ajanta Neog, the state's first woman finance minister, presented a Rs 566-crore deficit budget for 2021-22.
Assam PCC president Ripun Bora said Sarma’s first state budget was also “directionless”.
“The budget is full of poems and filled with ornamental language….but it has neither vision nor direction,” the Rajya Sabha MP said.
“All the five budgets during the first BJP government flopped, the government didn’t implement or fulfil the promises made in the earlier budgets. And this budget will also fail as there is nothing in it,” he said. Bora said Rs 12,500 crore of microfinance loans, comprising both principal and interest, is currently outstanding in Assam but the budget has earmarked a sum of Rs 7,500 crore for the waiver scheme.
On the contrary, BJP said it is a “'people-centric”' budget which aims to cover all the development aspects of the state.
“The budget has proposals aimed at the welfare of the poor and middle class, while the outline for the next five years developmental work has been laid down. The budget has drawn the roadmap for implementing poll promises of the BJP, such as waiving loans from microfinance institutions for women borrowers and providing one lakh jobs to the youths. This will take forward Assam's development pace,” Assam BJP president Bhabesh Kalita said.
