Kolkata, July 07: While expressing happiness over the allocation of Rs 1,000 crore in the Union Budget for the relief and rehabilitation of those affected by Cyclone Aila, West Bengal Finance Minister Asim Dasgupta rued that there were not adequate allocations in other important sectors.
Dasgupta was reacting to the Union Budget Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee presented on Monday in Parliament.
“There was mention of higher public expenditure on programmes like the NREGS, JNURM etc, which is welcome. Similarly, the statements in this Union budget on Central allocation of Rs 1,000 crore for rebuilding the damaged infrastructure following cyclone Aila in West Bengal, that of Rs 25 crore for establishing a campus of Aligarh Muslim university at Murshidabad and the proposal of one handloom mega-cluster in West Bengal are also welcome,” Dasgupta said.
Following Aila, the state government had requested the Centre to declare it a national disaster and allocate Rs 1,000 crore for it.
“While the increase in the plan outlay for the Ministry of Women and Child Development has been 2.1 per cent, in agriculture and related areas, the increase has been just 1 per cent and in the area of school education and literacy, the increase was zero,” the state finance minister said.
Mukherjee had called a meeting of state finance ministers last month to take their opinion on the Budget.
Dasgupta said there was a difference between the emphasis placed in the Budget on higher public expenditure to help the economy come out of the recession and the mention in Economic Survey of India of the need for an increase in FDI investment limits in banks, raising of foreign equity share in insurance to 49 per cent, retrenchment of workers by amending the Industrial Disputes Act and increase of working hours from the present 8 hours to 12 hours.
“This difference should be resolved as early as possible,” the minister said.
–Agencies