Excelsior Correspondent
NEW DELHI, July 10: Dr Jitendra Singh, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Science & Technology and Earth Sciences, MoS in Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Space & Atomic Energy today formally thanked the Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley for responding to his request for liberal financial allocation for the State of Jammu & Kashmir as well as to the departments covered by his Ministry.
Soon after the presentation of the budget, Dr Jitendra Singh walked up to the seat of Arun Jaitley in Lok Sabha and conveyed his gratitude on behalf of the people of J&K for, among other things, sanctioning an IIT for Jammu. It may be recalled that Dr Jitendra Singh had personally placed a proposal before the HRD Ministry for an IIT in Jammu which was promptly approved by the HRD Minister Smriti Irani. Thereafter, he had sought a personal appointment with Jaitley and requested him to arrange funding for it in his budget.
Talking to media outside the Parliament House, Dr Jitendra Singh observed that Jaitley had adopted a balanced approach not only while allocating funds to different States, but had also tried to strike a balance among the different regions within each State. Citing the example of Jammu & Kashmir, he said, while Jammu had been given an IIT, for Kashmir Valley there is a Pashmina promotion allocation and for Ladakh there is provision to promote Solar projects. In addition, he said, both the capital cities of Jammu and Srinagar had been provided funds for upgrading of their respective Sports Stadia.
Rediculing the Congress party’s criticism against the budget, Dr Jitendra Singh said, the Congress leaders should rather be thankful to the BJP led NDA Government for having made a special allocation for the construction of the statue of Sardar Patel in Ahmedabad. He said, this is something which the Congress party failed to do in 60 years of its rule although Sardar Patel was one of the front rank Congress leaders.
By correcting this anomaly, he said, the BJP has only proved the point that this Government gives due reverence and respect to eminent leaders of the country irrespective of their party affiliations. In the same vein, he said, BJP has also introduced schemes named after leaders like Shyam Prasad Mukherjee and Deen Dayal Upadhyay who had been deliberately ignored by the previous Governments.
Dr Jitendra Singh also thanked the Finance Minister for conceding the request of Department of Personnel & Pensions falling under him for extra allocation to support pensioners keeping in view that the number of pensioners in the country is now more than the number of serving officials. Similarly, he also thanked the Finance Minister for funding the Science & Technology projects falling in his Department and the space programme under him for the launch of satellite voyage to Mars. He further added that two Institutes for Ageing in Madras Medical College, Chennai and AIIMS in New Delhi are a new land mark in the history of independent India.
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