Naidu describes budget as 'jugglery of numbers'

Telugu Desam president N Chandrababu Naidu on Friday described the Budget 2012-13 tabled by Finance Minister Pranab mukherjee as yet another 'jugglery of numbers'.

Talking to media persons at NTR Trust Bhavan, Naidu said that the UPA Government has pursued anti-people measures in the Budget. He said that the subsidies of Rs 1,79,000 crore has been slashed while increasing the burden through hikes in the prices of fertilizers, petroleum and other products. ''It has become a habit of the UPA-2 to reduce the subsidies and slap taxes through back door" he pointed out.

Naidu said the hike in services tax by two percent would put an additional burden of Rs 18,600 crore on the common man. The income tax concession to common man by raising ceiling limit from Rs 1.8 lakhs to Rs 2 lakhs was very miniscule, he said  and added the Government had ignored the Expert Committee's suggestion for a hike up to Rs  3 lakh.

The TDP chief said that the allocation to  agriculture sector was meager from Rs 4.75 lakh crore to Rs 5.75 lakh crore. In view of all the UPA's lopsided policies, the farmers were declaring crop holiday as they had no other alternative in view of steep hike in cost and low returns, he stated.

He said the UPA government was on the other hand giving more concessions to corporate sector to the tune of over Rs 5 lakh crores thereby, ignoring the common man and showing indifferent attitude towards his problems.

While welcoming some of the reliefs like hike in pensions, handloom clusters in Prakasam and Guntur and also allocation of Rs 100 crore for the development of NG Ranga Agriculture University, the TDP chief condemned the pro-corporate and anti-farmer and anti-poor budget and blamed it on the UPA government for not fulfilling any of its poll promises.