A jugglery of figures: YSRCP

Hyderabad: Describing the State Budget for 2013-14 as a 'jugglery of figures', YSR Congress Party on Monday said that the government owes an apology for the goof up in the State Assembly where Agriculture Minister K Laxminarayana read out a statement in the name of special agriculture budget. Addressing the press here, party senior leaders DA Somayajulu and Srikant Reddy said that the budget figures were not reflected the priorities as they do not have a comparative analysis. The Rs 1.63 lakh crore budget presented by Finance Minister Anam Ramanarayana Reddy had no vision and credibility as in the past the estimates were revised and targets were not met. According to the Socio-Economic Survey, for the past two years, agriculture registered a negative growth rate of 6.2 per cent and 2.6 per cent. A Manufacturing also took a beating with a negative growth rate of 4.25 per cent in organized sector and 1.98 per cent in non-organized sector, while production of electricity and gas also fell. The growth rate in former Chief minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy's rule was 9.6 per cent in 2005-06 and went up to 11.18 and 12.2 per cent by in 2007-09. It started falling from the next year as there was no economic activity and revenue generation was poor, they added. While all the parameters of growth are on the slide, showing figures and estimates in whopping measure is only to confuse people and hide the actual situation, they said. The government's claim that agriculture loans would be given at zero per cent interest is a mirage as it is not practicable as the state has Rs 1.25 lakh crore as agriculture loans, half of which are crop loans. The government has given blanket figures wherever it was inconvenient to mention the actuals as in the case of housing. It has given the figure of 42 lakhs but did not specify the period nor had given any break-up, they said adding that the allocations for the next twelve months means very little unless the goals achieved during previous years are not spelt out clearly.