Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said the Union Budget 2014 has nothing for Odisha except for an IIM.
Patnaik said the Budget lacked focus on agriculture, irrigation and social sector, which should have got greater priority in view of the high inflation and the spectre of drought in many parts of the country.
The Chief Minister also said the nominal increase in allocation for flagship schemes would hurt the development process of States. “Meagre allocation on ambitious programmes like rural electrification speaks of tokenism,” he said.
Maintaining that the concerns of the States about the losses on account of Central Sales Tax (CST) had not been addressed in the Budget, Patnaik said fiscal consolidation without revenue generation through introduction of the GST is a misnomer.