Nothing concrete seen in General Budget: Nitish

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday said the BJP-led NDA Government has been talking about assisting farmers and development, but nothing concrete has been seen in the General Budget for 2016-17.

"They have been talking about development of farmers, agriculture, but nothing concrete has been seen. When he was talking about the farmers, we hoped that what they had promised during the election in 2014 that the minimum support price will be decided by adding 50 percent with it. This is the third year and they have not yet fulfilled it," Nitish told the media here.

He further stated that the government did not take any step to help the farmers.

"They talked about income security. They also stated that farmer's income will double in two years. The Economic Survey, however, shows that the farmer's income is very less. If the income increases in five years, it won't be fruitful due to inflation," he added.

Presenting the General Budget in the Parliament earlier, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the agenda for the next year is to undertake transformative measures based on nine pillars for India.

Outlining the nine pillars for transforming India, the Finance Minister said agriculture, rural sector, social sector, education, skill and job creation to make India a knowledge based and productive economy, infrastructure investment, financial sector reforms, governance reforms and ease of doing business, fiscal discipline and tax reforms to reduce compliance burden would be focus areas.

Maintaining that the NDA Government's initiatives have bridged the trust deficit that was present during the tenure of the previous government, Jaitley said the ruling BJP would have prudent fiscal policy, raise domestic demand and carry out reforms, with focus on the rural and social sectors, infrastructure and re-capitalisation of banks.

He said he was presenting the Budget at a time when the global economy was in a serious crisis.

Maintaining that the government has converted challenges into opportunities, Jaitley said, "The CPI inflation has come down to 5.4 percent from nine plus, bringing big relief to the public.