By Avtar Bhat
JAMMU, Mar 28: The Peoples Democratic Party today lambasted the coalition government and termed the figures given in budget as well as allocations made in it nothing except a figment of imagination.
Participating in the two day long discussions on Chief Minister’s grants during the second sitting of the State Assembly this afternoon, PDP MLA and former Deputy Chief Minister, Muzzafar Hussain Baig said that this budget and allocations are based on figment of imagination.
Substantiating his point with some facts, Mr Baig said that the government has not revealed that what is the plan for current year as it has not been got approved from the Centre as yet. Contrary to this during PDP led government in 2002 to 2008 the plan was got approved from Centre prior to presentation of budget in the Assembly. He wanted to know how can the government earmark funds and release money in April when they have not got their plan approved from Planning Commission of India (PCI).
Maintaining that Planning is an important Department, he said it shows which direction the state will move and also presents a map of how the Centre funds are to be spent in a planned way. He while revealing figures and comparing them with the PDP-Congress coalition from 2002 to 2008, said that according to economic survey of 2008-09 states own resources were minus 1976.14 crore which when compared to 2011-12 economic survey is minus 6371.96 crore. This means a shortfall in resources of hundreds of crores.
Mr Baig said the borrowings during that regime was 272.87 crore, which has touched last year to 3979 crore. This way the state resources decreased, he added.
The PDP leader said during PDP regime the Central assistance was 4403.27 crore which increased to 9892.46 crore now.
Maintaining that there was a 24 time short fall in state resources he said, it showed defective planning process in the state. Quoting figures Baig said last year for the Central sponsored schemes Rs 10,000 crore were to be spent but the government has not revealed that how much amount from this was spent.
He said it shows that either the government is not realistic or efficient to achieve the target. The agriculture, horticulture is a priority sector and last year target in this sector was 3621.08 crore but up to September 2011 only 50 percent was achieved.
He said though Bank is also a priority sector and people need its services. For average one bank branch there should be population of 12,000. But in Kishtwar there is a bank for the population of 26000 and in Bandipora and Poonch it is for the population of 23,000, he added.
Baig wanted to know how many bank branches were opened in these backward areas.
He said as per socio economic survey the state is also lagging behind 18 states of country. Stressing on keeping additionalities at the disposal of Chief Minister so that whenever he tours any constituency he can announce funds on demand.
But there should be no discrimination in distribution of the same, he said adding while distributing additonalities during PDP rule no discrimination was made on party politics basis. “We released them in favour of MLAs but now they are being given to defeated candidates of NC and no criteria is followed’’.
The PDP leader was also critical of the government and accused it of not following the District Development Board decisions. He said among 100 projects to be monitored by CM only seven projects were given to constituencies represented by PDP. Moreover out of Rs 4268 crore sanctioned by NABARD only 204 crore were spent, he added.
He accused the government of fixing the target but not making the achievements.
Mr Baig said the government has claimed to generate 4000 mw of power by 2020 and eight projects were given to NHPC in 2000 by it. Out of them in 12 years project report has been prepared for Barsar Power Project which can generate 1020 mws of power. If this was the pace then the project will not be completed even in 50 years, he added.
Earlier PDP staged walkout when Speaker, Mohammed Akbar Lone did not agree to grant 30 minutes time to Mr Baig.
The PDP chief whip Gaffar Sofi who protested in the House for not granting 30 minutes to party MLA to speak on grants aid that other MLAs who are single party have been given more time and the main opposition is being discriminated. However, the Speaker said that he can’t allow more than 10 minutes to Mr Baig to speak which led to walkout by the party. Later Mr Baig addressed criticised a press conference and criticised the Government for violating Parliamentary procedure.
However the Chief Minister Omar Abdullah intervened and asked Speaker that the Opposition party MLA be allowed to speak for 30 minutes.
Later, the Speaker sent a communique to leader of opposition and the Party MLAs joined the discussion in second session.
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