TPCC tars Budget with ‘anti-farmer’ paint

Hyderabad: Terming the Union budget as anti-farmer, Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) president N Uttam Kumar Reddy alleged that the Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley rendered injustice to Telangana State in his 2017 budget introduced on Wednesday.

In a press note issued here after the introduction of the Union budget, Uttam said there was nothing new in the budget even as the Narendra Modi government chanted that it would unearth black money and curb corruption with the demonetisation of big currency notes. “The budget is nothing but magic of numbers,” he observed.

Uttam Kumar Reddy said the Union government had allocated Rs 10 lakh crore for the agriculture sector which is of no use to the farmers.

“The banks are imposing several conditions in lending loans to farmers. Though the Centre made tall claims, it failed to announce support price to farmers’ produce.

There is no use in giving crop loans to farmers without strengthening the market and not instilling confidence among the farmers with regard to prices to their produce,” he said, adding that Jaitley’s budget inflicted severe injustice to Telangana State.

The Centre also failed to include a single assurance given to Telangana State during the bifurcation of the undivided State.

The Congress leader also lamented that the Centre allotted All India Institute og Medical Sciences (AIIMS) to Gujarat instead of giving it to Telangana State as promised in the past and was causing gross injustice to the newly-formed State in every budget.

He blamed the Telangana Rashtra Samithi MPs for miserably failing to pressurise the Centre to fulfil even a single assurance made to Telangana during the reorganisation of Andhra Pradesh State.

The employees were also not happy with the budget as it only increased tax exemption limit from Rs 2.5 lakh to Rs 3 lakh, he said, adding that the budget was totally anti-people and anti-farmer.