The Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) Opposition in Kerala has accused the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government of delivering a Budget that sought to paper over Kerala’s dire economic situation by regurgitating empty promises.
Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan termed Finance Minister K.N. Balagopal’s nearly two-hour Budget speech on February 5 (Monday) an election-eve screed that targeted the Opposition to conceal the government’s alarming fiscal failures.
He said Mr. Balagopal had relegated the Budget to the subaltern status of a worn-out political statement speckled with cliched, obsolete and hollow-sounding communist jargon.
Mr. Satheesan said Mr. Balagopal destroyed the Budget’s sanctity and used the presentation in the Assembly as a bully pulpit to demonise the Opposition repeatedly.
He said Mr. Balagopal used the heavily politicised Budget speech as a fig leaf to cover the embarrassing fact that almost 50% of the funds earmarked for plan expenditure in critical sectors, including social welfare, remained unspent.
Mr. Satheesan said successive Budgets presented by Mr. Balagopal seemed built on sand because the government lacked the economic heft to implement the fiscal proposals.
Mr. Satheesan said the Budget dealt the declining rubber-growing sector a mortal blow by not substantially hiking the production incentive for nearly 13 lakh small-scale cultivators on the brink of penury.
He said the government had cruelly shut down the website of the Rubber Production Incentive Scheme to dissuade beneficiaries from registering. The LDF had no choice. Its failed tax administration and revenue management had run Kerala to financial ruin.
Since last June, the government has not paid social welfare pensions for needy people, he said.
The LDF has left nearly 62 lakh beneficiaries in the lurch. It has spent only 3.7% of the money earmarked for the government’s flagship housing for the poor scheme (Life Mission). The treasury was bone-dry. The government was hard-pressed to revise the noon-meal scheme rates fixed in 2018, he said.
“Headmasters and teachers are paying out of their pockets to keep the scheme afloat,” Mr Satheesan said.
He said the government’s “erroneous” decision to slap an additional cess on diesel and fuel retailed in Kerala has hit fuel sales and triggered seller inflation.
The cost of commuting and moving freight has increased. Mr. Satheesan said the taxpayers picked up the tab for the government’s myopic policies.
Mr. Satheesan termed the State’s tax administration slack. “The government’s amnesty scheme for tax defaulters during the now-defunct VAT regime has repeatedly failed due to faulty assessment”, he said.
Special development packages announced for coast-dwellers and residents of Idukki and Wayanad remained on paper.
He said the Budget offered no coherent suggestion to negotiate the hard economic road ahead. It celebrated economic stagnation by falsely portraying it as welfare.
Mr. Satheesan said the LDF had cynically claimed credit for projects the previous UDF government jump-started, including Vizhinjam port and Kochi Metro.
The Budget failed to balance the books. It has proven to be a mirage, said Mr. Satheesan.
Deputy Leader of the Opposition and Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) legislator P. K. Kunhalikutty called the Budget a damp squid that offered scarce hope. “Even treasury benches looked unenthusiastic”, he said.
