Veteran CPIM leader and newly elected president of the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) Tripura state unit, Pabitra Kar on Tuesday termed the Union budget as anti-farmers. He also lamented that no schemes were announced for like Assam and West Bengal. Moreover, Kar also criticized the Central Government for not allocating ‘satisfactory’ funds for MNREGA.
Reacting Union Budget 2021-22 which was placed by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, the veteran CPIM leader, slammed the Budget proposals in Agartala on Tuesday.
Kar said that the Budget was against the farmers. Saying that there was nothing significant in the Budget for Tripura, he wondered as to how the Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister of Tripura appreciated the Union Budget.
“There is no special scheme for Tripura. Some special schemes have been announced for Assam and West Bengal just because the states are poll-bound,” Kar commented.
Claiming that the Union Budget is anti-farmers, he said, the agriculture sector of the country will face another big blow in the days to come as the Budget overlooked the farmers’ issues. Continuing his criticism against the Budget, Pabitra Kar dubbed the union budget as a “document of deprivation for the farmers and rural masses”.
Speaking specifically on the fund allocations for farmers, Kar said, the FCI is a government institution that procures farm products from the farmers. In this budget, no allocations had been made for FCI. For last couple of years, it was borrowing money from various other PSUs for keeping the procurement drives intact, he pointed out.
He referred to data published by CMEI and said that this organization had pointed out as to how this government had befooled people in the name of budget. He had also pointed out some figures and said, allocation in MGNREGA sector is not satisfactory.
On one hand, one of their organizations demands 200 man-days for MGNREGA and on the other, this government was decreasing allocations in this.
