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Election-oriented Budget: Mayawati

LUCKNOW: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati on Saturday dubbed the Union budget 2008-2009 “election oriented” and expressed displeasure that the country’s largest State, Uttar Pradesh, had been ignored.

Talking to newspersons, Ms Mayawati said the sops and relief measures announced in the budget had been made with an eye on next year’s Lok Sabha elections.

She said Uttar Pradesh, particularly the backward regions of Purvanchal (Eastern U.P.) and Bundelkhand had been ignored. She dismissed the popular notion that the budget was for the common man.

Ms. Mayawati said that if the announcements had been made in the first budget of the United Progressive Alliance government, by now the results would have been visible. She lamented that barring the landless, the Dalits, the backward classes and the minorities, no measures had been announced for the welfare of the poor among the upper castes.

Welcoming the loan waiver, the Chief Minister, however, said that no measures had been announced for the timely availability of seeds, fertilizers and pesticides to the farmers.

She said the budget was silent on the steps to be taken by the banks on loan waiver and when the money would be made available.

Stating that 86 per cent of the crop loans were taken from the village money lender, the Chief Minister pointed out that no provisions had been made under his head in the budget.

She said the budget was silent on the steps to be taken on the availability of food grains and noted that the number of beneficiaries of the Public Distribution System had not increased.

Ms. Mayawati welcomed the budgetary allocation for minority welfare and the decision to extend the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme to all the districts. However, the minimum employment of 100 days under the scheme remained the same, she added.

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Election-oriented Budget: Mayawati

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