By our correspondent
Agartala, February 27, 2019: Opposition leader Manik Sarkar participated in discussion on Budget 2019-20 today and shared his experiences on different aspects of Budget as well as made a slew of suggestions. He expressed his concern on mounting borrowings and urged the Government to take step for slashing debt-burden.
He said, “Borrowing was proposed to be Rs 1543 crore in Budget 2018-19 which mounted to Rs 2380 crore in this year’s Budget. This a quantum jump and will create serious financial burden which will hamper growth of the State”. He suggested following formula while going for borrowing to keep it under check. He also pointed out ‘discrepancies in Opening Balance and Closing Balance and urged the Government to explain it in details, if there is no technical fault.
Comparing proposals of Budget 2018-19 and Budget 2019-20, Manik Sarkar said, previous Budget speech of Finance Minister Jishnu Dev Varman contained 137, however in Budget 2019-20, there are only 74 Paragraphs. “Less number of Paragraphs indicate that some of the proposals, especially Long term projects related proposals, made in Budget 2018-19 were not mentioned in Budget 2019-20. As a result progress of those proposals remained unknown.
Apart from suggestions and concerns, he criticized some of the Budget proposals and alleged, job opportunities have shrunken in last 1-2 years. He also pointed out to less allocation in PWD and few other departments.
