Former Chief Minister and leader of the opposition, Dr Mukul Sangma, has said that the budget presented by the central government yesterday held nothing specific to the benefit of the North East and was therefore a disappointment.
He said that the budget lacked measures to enable the region to be at par with other parts of the country in respect of developmental indices, whether social or educational, or even in infrastructure.
He said that investments specific to the North East were not included except for a few that are a continuation of earlier programmes.
Dr Sangma said that the budget envisages ambitious spending without considering the resources and, in the process, the government will end up borrowing and increase the debt burden to alarming levels.
“So, what is going to happen is that the resources which will be mopped up will come out of selling government assets,” the leader of the opposition said.
Dr Sangma also said that he would have been happy if there could have been specific allocations to deal with the perpetual problem of the River Brahmaputra, which unleashes havoc every year during the monsoon. He also said that the country is far behind Bangladesh what that country is doing with the water resources.
He also criticized the budget for not having a specific mention of how to carry forward the Act East Policy.
“Act is also missing and policy is also missing,” he quipped.
He also that there is no mention of the North Eastern Council and Ministry for Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), which is specific to the region.
