The Union Budget has betrayed the State and nothing was said about the Special Category Status (SCS) or an alternative financial package, even as it spoke abundantly about selling the public sector units (PSUs), Anantapur MP Talari Rangaiah said on Monday.
“Except for the fishing harbour hub in Visakhapatnam and a railway freight corridor, it looked like the Budget was only for the four poll-bound States of Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. The BJP must keep the poll politics at rest and get down to working for the real development of people. We expected a lot on the employment generation and livelihood creation fronts,” Mr. Rangaiah told The Hindu over phone from New Delhi.
The MP said that at a time when farmer community was angry over the new laws, ‘the Centre chose to to do nothing about it.’ “The Budget speech publicised how the Centre had given ₹75,000 crore towards MSP. But, it was silent on the payment of ₹4,282 crore due to Andhra Pradesh for the quantum of rice it had procured for the Central government,” the MP pointed out.
Anantapur Urban MLA and former MP Anantha Venkatarami Reddy also expressed displeasure over ‘the lack of thoughts to address the difficulties of the farmers’. “The Budget did not promise anything in that direction. Rather, it focussed on pumping money into the metros and urban locations,” he said.
During the coronavirus pandemic, farmers had suffered a lot and an agriculture revival package was expected. But, the Budget only concentrated on benefits to the corporates, which was evident from the cheer in the stock market as disinvestment would help the big companies, he observed.
