Excelsior Correspondent
VIJAYPUR, June 3: Seeking immediate roll back of enhanced taxes on various commodities and unjustified increase in the VAT and Toll, former Minister and senior NC leader Surjeet Singh Slathia today described the Jammu and Kashmir Budget 2016-17 directionless, anti-poor and avoidable burden on the people of the State.
Addressing party workers at Bari Brahmana today Mr Slathia said, “The immediate fallout of the budget has been strong resentment by the people in general and business community in particular, which has taken recourse to shutdown.”
The former Minister termed the budget as jugglery of words and numbers, saying this offers nothing to the common people as agriculture, power, tourism and other sectors have completely been ignored. He expressed dismay on Government’s silence over regularisation of various categories of workers, especially working in PHE, who are on continued strike, resulting in erratic water supply in most of the areas.
Mr Slathia said that the budget has nothing concrete for industrial promotion, which holds key to enhancing productivity and generating employment for the educated unemployed besides skilled and unskilled work force. He said the Government has failed in devising a mechanism to train unemployed youth as per needs of the job market.
Sharing the concern of people over erratic power and water supply besides shortage of food grains at the CAPD sale outlets, the former Minister attributed lack of political direction to the mess created by PDP-BJP coalition.
The NC leader said that the ill-conceived National Food Security Act has added to the miseries of people and deprived the poor of much needed ration support. He said frequent power cuts have made the life of common man miserable during the ongoing unprecedented summer spell. He urged the administration to ensure regulated power supply besides providing drinking water through tankers in the areas which are witnessing shortage these days.
Block president Bhagwan Singh, Distt vice president Vijay Singh, Mahinder Gupta, Raman Gupta, Sarpanch Karam Chand, Sarpanch Sadiq Mohd, Sarpanch Balwant Singh, Sarpanch Swarn Singh and others were also present.
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