Leader of Opposition (LoP), TR Zeliang, taking part in the general discussion on budget on the last day of the seventh session of the 13the Nagaland Legislative Assembly, Friday described State’s budget 2021-22 as “hollow, bereft of innovation and contains no plans and programmes” to ease the hardship of the common man at a time when the State economy has been ravaged by COVID-19 pandemic.
Reiterating that budget 2021-22 was a contract-oriented budget, Zeliang said the budget contained mostly of ‘construction budget’ focused only on construction of infrastructures for various government departments.
Claiming that the budget would benefit people at the helms of affairs running the PDA government, the LoP said there was no intention to bring in welfare-oriented policies and programmes for the general public of the State except construction related works.
Even as COVID-19 pandemic has created a big hindrance for the State financially, Zeliang said putting the entire blame on the pandemic despite assistance from the Centre was unfortunate.
LoP asserted that 15th Finance Commission in its report titled ‘Finance Commission in COVID times’ had reported Nagaland as the second highest debt state in the entire country. He asserted this should serve as an alarm to the PDA government because, as per the report, although Nagaland’s Debt/GSDP had reduced from 55.5% in 2011–12 to 42.7 in 2018–19, the 15th FC said it was still much higher than the National Health Education Standards (NEHS) average of 29.61%.
Further, LoP said budget 2021-22 had no provision to decrease the mounting debts of the State, but has only worsened the condition of the already debt-ridden State.
He also questioned the chief minister whether his government was satisfied with the recommendation of 15th FC to discharge payment of salary under non plan expenditure for five years.
Zeliang also pointed out that unemployment rate was increasing sharply in the state, but budget 2021-22 has no provisions to ease the burden. As per the Ranking in NITI Aayog’s Sustainable Development Goals Index (2019), Zeliang said Nagaland was placed 19th out of 29 States.
He said the minister in charge of finance has made tall promises in his budget speech but in reality, the State was facing one of the worst times since Statehood.
He mentioned that there were already over 1,40,000 government employees, which was over 7.1 % of the State total population of 19,80,602 as per 2011 Census. Unless employment avenues were created for the unemployed youth, LoP said government jobs alone would not be able to solve the ever increasing unemployment rate in the State.
Further, Zeliang pointed out that state has an excess of over 70,000 government employees, which was consuming 67.3% of the budget every year. He said under such a paradigm, the youth had no place to go if the state government focused only on constructing buildings.
On the Infrastructure projects under the scheme of Special Assistance to States for Capital Expenditure with Rs. 200 crore interest loan assistance, he said several new and ongoing projects including improvement of roads in district headquarters were undertaken under this programme. However, he said the never-ending trumpet about maintaining the district headquarters roads has been going on since the first budget speech in 2018.
Asking how many district headquarters roads were being built and maintained besides Kohima and Dimapur, LoP said that after 2018 budget speech, there were talks about fund being released to maintain the road, but in reality nothing much have taken place on the ground and the stretch of road remained in very poor condition.
He said it would be good to see that implementation was successfully carried out on the ground instead of harping the success on such activity on paper.
While the budget speech was “overwhelmed with the topic of COVID19”, Zeliang said there was neither mention of the funds received nor the utilization of the same. He added that there was no mention of the efforts made by the state to redress the grievances of the people.
Pointing out that the pandemic has particularly affected the farmers and business sector badly, LoP however said there was little mention of the assistance that the government planned to provide to help rehabilitation.
Zeliang also expressed surprise that there was no mention about Kohima Smart city project, progress and targets that government had in place for the project to see the light of day.
In power sector, Zeliang said government was contemplating privatizing distribution and revenue generation sector. He, however, said that the move would be counterproductive as the department has invested a lot into prepaid metering system and other technicalities.
Zeliang maintained that department would become helpless and the private cooperation would be given unparallel authority. He said government had every right to venture into different mode if the ongoing electronic and prepaid system becomes a failure.
However, he said that without the waiting for results and rushing for privatization would only mean that there was a scheme to chop off the hands and legs of the power department in the State.
In forest department, Zeliang said except for one sentence there was no mention of the important JICA project for which the 1st instalment payment was made in 2016-17.
He said self sustainability and revenue generating sources was much talked about, but not giving importance to mega project only showed that there was no action and only empty words.
LoP said it would be pointless to talk about foreign investment in the State when state failed to implement what was sanctioned under externally aided project.
On Nagaland Rights of Persons with Disabilities Rules 2019, he said the 4% reservation of all vacant posts in government offices was issued after a delay of three years and that too only after a case was filed in the Gauhati High Court (Kohima Bench) against the government by the candidates with disabilities for non-implementation of Disabilities Act. LoP said he, therefore, failed to understand why government was taking credit for something which they were forced to do by the court.
Further, Zeliang pointed out that even if it failed to bring any new mega projects for the state, the state government should be sincere to implement and complete within specified period what was made available to them like four-lane Dimapur-Kohima, progress on Dimapur City by-pass road, and position of Kohima city bypass road, Kohima Smart City, JAICA external aided project etc.
On Chiethu Airport, he asked the minister transport and civil aviation to provide detail report.
Concluding his speech, Zeliang said the government seemed to only delight in extracting more money from the State exchequer and the people of the State in the name of the pandemic. He alleged that COVID-19 has been a source of income for the government in many ways while citing “instances” like fuel price hike in the guise of COVID cess and the 15% pro rata cut under non-development plan and another 15% from the development outlay of various departments.
However, LoP said there was no report of the receipt and the expenditure of the same in the budget presentation, which he maintained gives room for huge misappropriation of the funds received from these sources.
He said this was a vindication that the government of the day was harping on bringing “change” only on paper and nothing in reality. Describing the budget as
“new wine in old bottle”, the LoP asked the PDA government to change its slogan “Change is coming” to “Change may come someday”.