Opposition Leader Manik Sarkar on Thursday demanded the BJP led coalition government to publish a White Paper and clarify the Rs. 569.52 crore debt burden shown in the recently presented Rs. 26,892-crore tax-free Budget.
Addressing the reporters at his chamber in the assembly on Thursday Sarkar pointed out that the government had tabled two back-to-back zero deficit Budgets in the Assembly in its first two fiscals and most shockingly from the third budget presentation the government started showing deficit budgets.
“Had the previous government not left anything, the present government would not have presented zero deficit Budgets for two consecutive years”, Sarkar said, adding that the Budget for the 2022-23 FY that was presented in the House shows a deficit of Rs. 569.52 crore.
He said, “The people of the state want the present government to unveil a White Paper on how it tackled the debt burden of the erstwhile regime and presented zero deficit budgets for two consecutive years.”
Sarkar on Thursday declared the budget presented by the finance minister Jishnu Dev Varma as ‘war against unemployed youths’ and ‘anti-poor, anti-people’ budget.
Criticising the government for ignoring the aspirations of youth and government employees, the Left leader said “There is no mention of fresh appointments in government departments. It seems the Budget declared a war against job aspirants.”
“In the past four years of the BJP regime, 1.50 lakh employees have received DA only three times. Earlier, they used to get it twice in a year during the Left rule. The erratic release of DA has widened the gap of DA between employees of the Central government and the state. Around 25- 28 per cent DA is pending for state government employees,” Sarkar claimed.
The former chief minister also alleged, “The BJP government has removed around 50,000 beneficiaries from the list of various social pensions. Therefore, enhancing the amount of social pension to the tune of Rs. 2,000 for the poor is not a big deal because around half a lakh beneficiaries are already denied of the benefit.”
“This present government has totally failed to work for the welfare of the people of this state and especially for the poorer section of the people during the past four years,” he said.
