J&K Budget termed 'unconstitutional'

The National Conference (NC) in J&K on Tuesday challenged the Congress-led coalition government's separate power budget as "unconstitutional".

The NC termed the budget as "unrealistic, presumptuous and directionless" while asserting that it was a "false claim" to call the current budget as zero deficit.

"There is a provision of only one budget in the Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir. In our understanding, this (Power budget) is not a separate budget but part of general budget. The Finance Minister has dealt with power separately in his budget speech," former Finance Minister and leader of opposition in the J&K legislative Assembly, A R Rather, while participating in the general discussion on budget for 2006-07 in Jammu.

"You can not claim it's a separate budget or it's on the lines of Union Railway budget as railway happens to be an autonomous entity with huge income. I think the Finance Minister wants a focus on the power sector and so the novel idea of a separate power budget," he elaborated.

Rather claimed that the Finance Minister had "fudged" figures to prove his budget was zero deficit. "The coalition government claimed explicitly that last three budgets were zero deficits and this time around attempts have been made to convey the same though without using the term zero deficit.