CHANDIGARH: The Punjab Congress dismissed the state budget as a bunch of lies. Punjab Congress president Amrinder Singh Raja Warring said the government has betrayed the people of Punjab as not a single promise that the AAP made before elections has been fulfilled in the budget.
"There is no mention of providing Rs 1,000 per month to all women above the age of 18 in Punjab. Similarly, there is no clarity on the 300 units of free power. Other than just a token announcement, the finance minister did not elaborate as to from where the government will get money and there is no budgetary allocation made for the scheme," he said.
Warring added that the first budget of any government lays out the roadmap for the next five years, but this has neither a roadmap nor any vision or direction. "Budget is not just a financial statement. It is also a means to set the course for future progress and was the best chance for the government to show what "badlaav" it envisioned for the state. It has miserably failed on that," he said.
He pointed out that the budget does not spell out how the state intends to cover the revenue gap. “Now they must have realised that the government does not run on rhetoric,” he stated while pointing out how party convener Arvind Kejriwal and CM Bhagwant Mann used to claim that they would generate tens of thousands of crores from sand mining, which according to them, was pocketed by the corrupt.
The PCC president said several schemes like the modernisation of bus stands were old ones and initiated by the previous Congress government. "It is like old wine in new bottles," he said.
