Noisy scenes were witnessed in Haryana Assembly on Friday during the discussion on maiden State Budget for fiscal 2015-16 which was presented by State Finance Minister Capt. Abhimanyu on March 17. During the discussion which lasted for about two hours, the Opposition INlD and Congress kept pressing for extension of duration to discuss the budget.
leader of opposition Abhay Chautala and Kiran Chaudhary, chief, Congress legislative party, several times, requested Speaker Kanwar Pal Gujjar to extend the time for discussion on State Budget. At one point of time, the Congress legislatures pointed out that the Finance Minister Captain Abhimanyu is not present in the House during discussion on the budget.
“Why the Finance Minister is not present in the House during the Budget discussionIJ He has to give his reply later in the day, said Congress MlA Raghubir Singh Kadia. Responding to this, Haryana Health Minister Anil Vij said, “We have a collective responsibility in the party. I am present here to listen to MlA’s suggestions on budget and the Finance Minister will be back in the House soon.”
Taking a dig on former Finance Minister HS Chatta, Anil Vij said, “Congress’ Finance Minister used to go back home and sleep after presenting the budget… BJP’s Finance Minister is atleast present in the Haryana Vidhan Sabha.”
Retorting, the Congress legislators said that the Chief Minister Manohar lal Khattar was also photographed sleeping in the lawn of his house after the State Budget, indicating towards the picture published in a newspaper showing Khattar taking a nap in his lawn.
Just as the BJP and Congress legislators were engaged in a war of words over the issue, the Chief Minister entered the House. Surprised by the ongoing discussion over his photograph, Khattar stood up and said that this is very unfortunate that such things are being discussed in the House.
“On the day of budget, I got free early and after doing all my work, I had a free time for almost 20 minutes and took a power-nap in that time in my lawn, which is generally done by everyone and nothing is wrong in it”, he clarified. Clearing up his party’s stand, Congress MlA Kuldeep Sharma said that it was Anil Vij, who always digs out the past, we have not raised this issue.
later, when the Speaker announced to conclude the discussion, the INlD and Congress MlAs demanded more time to speak on the budget. Noisy scenes were witnessed for about half an hour with the opposition members pressing for extending the time. The Speaker then allowed two MlAs to speak for few minutes on the debate.
Finance Minister, Captain Abhimanyu, later giving reply to the debate on budget proposal in the Assembly reiterated that the budget 2015-16 presented by him is a budget for growth and balanced development, and that allocations have been hiked to key sectors to keep up the momentum.
Referring to the opposition charge of the revenue deficit going up and the fiscal deficit not being contained, Capt Abhimanyu blamed the previous government for the same. The projected revenue for year 2014-15 is reduced.
Only 46.59 per cent of the Budget receipts had been collected upto October 2014 when present government took reign of the administration. With concerted efforts, we have achieved gross revenue receipts of 83 per cent so far, he added.
On the issue of FRBM Act for revenue and fiscal deficit, he said that State government would ensure minimising the revenue deficit and borrowing, if any, would be within the prescribed limits. The debt what so ever taken would be utilised for planned expenditure and capital expenditure.
Capt Abhimanyu blamed some of the mess on window-dressing resorted to by the previous Government. Some expenditure in 2013-14 was postponed to 2014-15. “When they prepared the Budget for 2014-15, they were quite aware of that they were going to face the elections in this financial year.
He said, “we have identified thrust areas including infrastructure development, skill up-gradation and generation of employment through enhanced activities in the agricultural and allied sector and on micro, small and medium industries. The focus has been set on pacing up development of the State”.
Referring to white paper recently released by the Government, he said it has shown that Rs11500 crore must be credited in HUDA account lying with private builders. A payment of Rs3500 crore was released for income tax which could have been prevented by maintaining accounting practices, said he.
He added that the budget for year 2015-16 would spur growth and development oriented for all including 21 districts, 90 assembly constituencies and more than 6500 villages. On the question about heavy losses of power companies, he said debt management of power companies is a matter of concern and the State Government would work in this direction.