HT Correspondent
DIMAPUR, March 4: The Rising People’s Party (RPP) on Monday said the 2024-25 Nagaland budget passed recently in the state assembly lacked imagination and was more or less a con job as it had nothing for the common man, sports persons, entrepreneurs, elderly and farmers.
In a release, the RPP said the media and communication committee of the ruling Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NPP) describing the budget as ‘visionary’ would make any sane person wonder if there is any limit to sycophancy and stupidity.
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According to the party, the central government funds under the Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSS) for construction of office buildings, roads, stadiums and other infrastructural activities, for drinking water or the government of Japan or FORTIS Group, Delhi, constructing hospitals in the state have nothing to do with the state budget.
It asked the NDPP what correlation the Rs 180 crore sanctioned for the Eastern Nagaland People’s Organisation areas under PM-DevINE has with the state budget. It said the NDPP should first grasp the term “state budget”.
The party further sought to know the connection between hosting the Khelo India University games in the state with the state budget. It pointed out that the Khelo India Games was hosted before the budget was passed and that Khelo India is the initiative of the central government.
It said chief minister Neiphiu Rio, who also holds the finance portfolio, took credit for the games held in the past for which the state government did not incur even a single expenditure. It wondered how the NDPP media and communication committee dared to term the budget ‘visionary’.
The RPP stressed the budget passed by the governments are future-oriented, probable expenditures and incomes for the coming financial year.
It said the chief minister, very disingenuously, brought together all the developmental works sponsored by the Centre by way of CSS – past and present ongoing works – and the donations given by private agencies and collated all these heads as state budget for the financial year 2024-25 as if these were state government initiatives for the future. It added that the block-making unit at Wazeho cement factory which has been operating for the last 2-3 years has been highlighted in the budget as if it is a new initiative to be undertaken.
“Going through the state budget one gets the feeling that it is copy-pasted straight from Nirmala Sitharaman’s budget speech,” the RPP said.
