Vijayawada: The Telugu Desam, BRS and other opposition parties termed the AP Budget 2023 as a ‘Bankruptcy Budget’ without financial discipline. In swift responses, they criticised the Budget claims as fraudulent and of no use to the public. “Nobody is happy and the Jagan Mohan Reddy government failed totally in presenting a good budget,” they said.

Chairman of the public accounts committee (PAC), Payyavula Kesav of TD, felt that finance minister Buggana Rajendranath took the people of AP into an imaginary world in what is the last Budget of this government.

“Compared to the funds spent by the TD government for irrigation and other sectors, what is earmarked or spent by this government is too low. The present government did not spend even ₹20,000cr in the past four years for the primary sectors,” he said.

State TD president K. Atchannaidu said the Budget was deceitful and a lot of lies were packed in it. “The allocations are solid but the expenses are low.” He dared the Chief Minister to release a white paper on the state’s debts / borrowals and the proceeds from the sale of sand and liquor.

The TD state president said that in the last four budgets, the funds allocated for agriculture, irrigation, education and medical sectors were mismanaged by the government. “Jagan put a debt burden of ₹9 lakh crore on the state.”

He said the YSRC government’s Budget of ₹2.75 lakh crore was nothing to crow about. “Once again, Jagan and Co are ready to deceive the people with a fraudulent budget and a liar’s budget,” he said.

The president of the AP Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), Thota Chandrasekhar, said that apart from a “juggling of the numbers and the magic of words, everything in the AP Budget is dud.” “This is the last budget of the present government in the run-up to the 2024 Assembly polls.  But, the Budget speech disappointed all those who were hoping to see the unveiling of a clear development model.”

The BRS leader said it was ironic that in this budget of ₹2,79,279 crore, no new hope of development for the state was evident. It would have been better if the finance minister, who boasted that 192 skill centers have been set up in the state, also explained about the resources and opportunities provided there, he said.

CPM state secretary Srinivasa Rao said there was no mention of funds from the central government, no steps to protect the Visakha Steel Plant and no funds for construction of the Kadapa Steel Plant. “There is no chance for completion of the Polavaram Rehabilitation and Resettlement, the Veligonda Project, the Handri – Niva and Uttarandhra Sujala Sravanthi projects,” he said.

“Also, the government neglected the Upadhi scheme, health, education, industry and welfare. The allocations for various departments have not been sufficient. With these nominal funds, the Polavaram project and other important projects would be hard to complete within a stipulated period,” he stated.

CPI state secretary Ramakrishna: “The government claims it provided 6.81 lakh jobs to the youth, but this is a lie. Other than volunteers, the state government did not give a single job to the youth. The government claims the state achieved a GDP growth of 14  per cent, however fact is, this did not cross 7 per cent. The ruling YSRC is cheating the people.”

National president of the Federation of Small and Medium Enterprises of India, APK Reddy, said, “The state Budget is found to be practical. There are good allocations to several key sectors including food processing, micro, small and medium enterprises etc. We congratulate the state government for coming up with such a practical Budget and we wish that the allotted money would be spent. If so, we can witness real development of all key sectors in the state.”

Stated the president-elect of the Federation of AP Chamber of Commerce and Industry Potluri Bhaskar: “The government should have made more allocations for industry and announced incentives so that it would have helped in the development of infrastructure for industries in a big way at the backdrop of the recently held Global Investors Summit. The allocation of ₹1,000 crore for skill development is welcome.”

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