Poll-specific Budget: CLP leader Debabrata Saikia

GUWAHATI: CLP (Congress Legislature Party) leader Debabrata Saikia has said that the proposals of the Union Budget announced on Monday have targeted poll-bound Assam, West Bengal, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. "Instead of applying steroid to revive the Corona-ravaged economy, the Union Finance Minister has applied paracetamol," he said.

Reacting to the Union Budget before the media here on Monday, Saikia said that the Budget has announced a package of Rs 1,000-crore for the tea-garden workers. "The situation remains that the BJP Government earlier announced minimum wage at the rate of Rs 351 daily for the tea-garden workers. However, the announcement has not yet been implemented as yet.

"The Scheduled Tribe (ST) status for six communities and the revival of the two paper mills in Assam remained promises on paper only," he added.

"The State has approximately 850 registered tea gardens each with at least 20 labour lines (streets). When computed, it comes to as many as 8,000 to 12,000 labour lines in the State. On the contrary, in the past five years the BJP government developed about 650 labour lines at the rate of only 130 labour lines in a year. If the work progresses at this pace, it will take a century to develop 10,000 such labour lines," pointed out Saikia.

He further said that the Budget has announced Rs 1,000 crore for the State's tea gardens where many primary schools are still under tea garden managements with the State government not taking measures for their provincialisation. "This is not all: 52 per cent of company-owned tea gardens have no medical officers — a situation that poses a threat to the healthcare of children and women," he added.

Saikia also said that the BJP government's biggest betrayals to Assam took place when it did away with the 90:10 funding pattern to the State, besides depriving it from its share of Central taxes and flagship schemes.

In the 2017-2018 State Budget, Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma announced that Assam would get Rs 25,657 crore Central share of taxes and Rs 18,580 crore for flagship programmes; but the State was deprived of Rs 8,672 crore in these two heads, he said.

"Similarly in 2018-2019, the State was deprived of Rs 2165.27 crore in these two heads. In the current financial year, the Centre is yet to release 40 per cent of the State's share."