NE NEWS SERVICE
PUDUCHERRY, FEB 3
Puducherry Chief Minister V Narayanasamy on Tuesday said the union budget has ‘totally ignored’ the Union Territory as sufficient funds needed for developmental activities here are not provided in it.
Addressing reporters, the Chief Minister said, ‘Puducherry is also a poll bound State, but funds have been earmarked for other poll bound states like Kerala, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu in the budget for development of national highways.’
Terming as ‘unfortunate’ the requirements of Puducherry being utterly ‘neglected’, Narayanasamy said this shows that the NDA government at the Centre pays no attention to the union territory.
‘The neglect of Puducherry in the budget is more shocking particularly after BJP national president J P Nadda during a public meeting here claimed that the NDA government was interested in ameliorating the lot of industrial workers and that ration shops would be activated in Puducherry,’ he said.
Narayanasamy sought to know how the reopening of mills and ration shops could be possible without allocation of funds.
He further said the central budget, presented on Monday by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, did not have any ‘laudable’ schemes or programmes to benefit students, salaried sections, youth, rural workers, women and farmers.
The Centre would normally earmark every year Rs 3000 crores as grants to facilitate implementation of territorial government’s budgetary proposals, he noted.
But, it had earmarked only Rs 1729 crores during the 2021-2022 financial year.
He voiced concern over the Centre ‘letting down’ rural workers by sidelining the MGNREGA scheme in allocation of funds in the budget.
Narayanasamy said the Centre’s intention to privatise public sector institutions like banks has been confirmed through the budget proposals and this is a dangerous trend which would hit the poorer sections.
The Centre should drop once and for all the move to hand over public sector undertakings to private players, Narayanasamy added.
