Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Jan 12: The budget presented by Finance Minister Dr Haseeb Drabu evoked mixed response.
Employees Joint Action Committee held a meeting under the chairmanship of its State President Abdul Qayoom Wani. While speaking, Wani termed the decisions regarding regularization of all temporary employees, implementation of 7th Pay Commission, removal of pay anomaly of all departments, special fund for the release of salary to the employees working under various schemes, mediclaim insurance policy for non-gazetted employees, renewal of treasury system and other decisions as welcome step. Wani said that in the budget speech the Finance Minister has not mentioned about the arrears of 7th Pay Commission. He added that public sector corporations were ignored and nothing has been put in the budget for their revival, budgetary support and regularization of their salaries. Wani urged upon the Government and Finance Minister to clear the doubts in his budget reply regarding the issues related to employee.
MLA Rafiabad Yawar Dilawar Mir hailed budget proposals for the next financial year presented by the Finance Minister Dr Haseeb Drabu in the Legislative Assembly. In a statement issues, Yawar said that the various announcements by the Finance Minister will go a long way in improving the living conditions of the poor people.
Jammu and Kashmir Pradesh Congress Committee has termed the budget as directionless and jugglery of words without anything substantial to fulfill the false slogans and promises made by the PDP-BJP coalitions Government. Reacting to the budget, Chief Spokesperson JKPCC Ravinder Sharma termed the budget as simply jugglery of words lacking any initiative to address the issues of different suffering sections of the society due to unprecedented hike of all commodities in recent times and failure of the Government to stream line the system.
A delegation of Jammu Kashmir and Ladakh All Departments Clerical Staff Association comprising its President Mohammad Sultan, Vice President Jeelani Naik, Provincial President Ravi Singh Bhau, General Secretary Mohammad Farooq, Farhat Ahmad Trali, Sukhbir Singh, Ravi Sharma, Sumit Kotwal and Jagdesh Thakor met Finance Minister Dr Haseeb Drabu and welcomed the Financial Budget for the year 2017-18. The budget is covering all the things related to people of Jammu and Kashmir, State employees and clerical cadre.
Shiv Sena (Bala Sahib Thackery) termed financial budget as directionless. While talking to media persons, State President of the party Dimpy Kohli said that there is nothing in the budget for the welfare of common man. He said there is no provision for creating new employment opportunity and also there is no provision for improvement in power, water, roads and buildings, health and other sectors. He termed the budget as anti employee and anti-poor.
While hailing the budget, BJP leader and National Executive Member ST Morcha Ishfaq-ur-Poswal urged Governor NN Vohra to exercise his powers and facilitate a separate budget for Ministry of Tribal Affairs (Gujjar Community of J&K) as per the provisions of Constitution of India. “It was good to see almost every sector covered in the recent budget but it was equally disappointing to see that population of homeless and landless Gujjar community of the State was completely ignored in the budget”, he added.
Commenting upon the State Budget proposals, Former Union Minister Prof Chaman Lal Gupta said that huge losses have obvious bearings on the whole economic matters. The State being an integral part of India, the Centre would have to share the losses but it is not good on any account that the dependence of the State on the Centre is galloping and there appear little efforts to come out of the muddle and to stand upon own legs, he added. He expressed surprise over the vacillation of the State in opting for GST measures like many other States of the country and trying to have a separate law just to give air to separatism, adding that although the State finances are much relying upon central assistance. He asserted that J&K is an integral and irrevocable part of India and all ambiguities and misgivings in this regard should not be allowed to prevail.
All J&K Low Paid Employees Federation held a meeting under the chairmanship of its President Abdul Majid Khan and termed the implementation of 7th CPC’s recommendation to April 2018 as regretful. He said that the prices of the essential commodities are rising due to which the common people and the salaried classes are facing financial hardships. He projected several demands including implementation of the 7th pay commission report, release of DA installments due from July 2016, enhance medial allowance, revive minimum daily wages, remuneration to village guards at par with minimum daily wages, honorarium to numberdars and anganwadi workers commensurate, etc. He said that the Federation has already called its federak units to raise these demands by staging dharnas and demonstration.
J&K Co-ordination Committee of Trade Unions held a meeting under the chairmanship of its State President Mohammad Maqbool. The participants expressed concern over the budget proposal put forth by the Finance Minister and termed it as anti-working class. JKCCTU calls upon all the employees and workers to fight against anti-employees and workers moves in the budget.
Reacting to the recent budget presented by Dr Haseeb Drabu, Finance Minister, Neeraj Kundan State President National Students Union of India (NSUI) said that the budget is not as per expectation of students after demonetization. All the students were in hope that this budget would waive off all the educational loan of the students as a big relief, but no such announcement has been made, he said, adding that government must help the students economically so that they become self employed and job creators. Major demands of students including hostels for the aspirants of New Polytechnic Colleges as well as recruitments for pass out students have been neglected, he added.
Shamsher Hakla Poonchi, Prominent Gujjar Leader criticized the J&K Government for not allocating funds in the financial budget for the welfare and development of Gujjar and Bakerwal community. “It is proved that the J&K Government is not working for the welfare and upliftment of Gujjar Bakerwal community whole heartedly”, he added.
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