Excelsior Correspondent
KATHUA, Mar 19: Former minister and DCC Kathua president, Dr Manohar Lal Sharma has alleged that the Union Budget for the J&K UT was not up to the expectations of the common man.
While reacting on Union Budget for J&K, DCC chief said that the J&K budget is not up to the expectations of people, as it would neither help strengthening the economy, nor ensure social security or development.
Sharma said allocated working capital for development is very less whereas salary and administrative expenses are more. He said at least 25% of the budget should have been allocated for development. He said that due to restrictions since last 7 months and especially on communications, the economy in J&K suffered a loss of more than Rs 16,000 crore but no step was taken to revive the economy of J&K.
He said two of the biggest industries in J&K are the tourism and agriculture & both of them have “totally collapsed” and no steps have been taken by Govt towards it. He said no focus was laid to provide compensation to the farmers for the damaged crops.
Manohar said many small irrigation projects under ARWSC scheme are pending due to non-availability of funds. He welcomed the step of allocation of Rs 2000 cr for 50000 jobs and said that hoped this don’t remain on papers as Governor SP Malik had also assured 50,000 jobs.
He said there are more than 62000 daily casual workers working in different departments and Govt didn’t provide any roadmap for their regularization and no words came from Govt on abolition of anti-employee SRO 202.
On decision to handover District hospitals to private sector under the PPP model, Manohar termed it as extremely dangerous as it will further broaden the access to healthcare by down trodden low economic group people of the country.
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