Opposition terms Nagaland budget visionless

The Congress in Nagaland today termed the DAN-III government's state budget for the 2014-15 fiscal as "visionless and devoid of any welfare schemes for the poor" and devoid any austerity measures to curb the huge deficit amounting to Rs 1252.45 crore.
Initiating the debate on Budget 2014-15 presented by Chief Minister T R Zeliang on the first day of Assembly session, Congress Legislature Party (CLP) Leader Tokheho Yepthomi said despite a decisive victory and contrary to people's expectations, there were no new reforms in the DAN government's budget.
Expressing that there were no economic reforms in the budget, he said economic growth has become stagnant for the last 12 years while the government failed to check price rise and rising unemployment.

He said despite the current fiscal mess, there was no radical reform in the tax policy and no corrective measures have been proposed to improve it.
Yepthomi said there was an urgent need to contain high deficit but the government had not proposed any revenue mobilisation moves to contain it.
He said austerity measures were not taken and the government was routinely spending huge money on non-revenue sectors.

"If the government is really serious about the present financial situation, they should take some steps like constituting an Expenditure Management Commission as proposed by the Centre," he said.
The CLP leader also lamented that no welfare schemes were proposed for the poor and less funds were alloted in the educational sector to improve government institutions.

Supporting the budget, NCP MLA Mmhonlumo Kikon termed it as potential and promising, despite the severe financial problems faced by the state government.