LAHORE - Punjab budget 2015-16 carries no relief for the working class and it is just a combination of complex words and figures which will add to the miseries of the already suffering masses, remark opposition parties leaders while giving observations on the provincial financial plan for the next fiscal.
PML-Q parliamentary leader in Punjab Assembly, Moonis Elahi, said that provincial rulers had provided no relief to the poor, farmers, youth and common man in their financial plan. He added that next fiscal financial plan would add to the miseries of the working classes instead of decreasing poverty, lawlessness and price-hike.
Moonis said that government employees salaries have been increased nominally, while no measures have been adopted for controlling the growing price-hike.
He claimed that projects of Lahore have been given priority, while allocations have been proposed for mausoleums ignoring the needs of the living human beings. Moonis said that mini-budget was given ahead of the budget by increasing petrol prices.
PTI Punjab organizer Chaudhary Sarwar presenting his party’s point of view said that his party completely rejects the new financial plan for the province as it carries no relief for the working classes.
Criticising the taxes scheme for next fiscal, he said that taxation policy of the provincial government was pro-rich and anti-poor. He remarked that increase in the police budget was government’s reward to police officers for their political loyalty and brutality against the masses’ protests.
Sarwar remarked that the budget documents were just hypothetical figures without any realisation of plight of the people, as the rulers had ruthlessly ignored the fact that people were committing suicides and selling their children to survive.
Central Punjab president of the PPP, Mian Manzoor Ahmed Wattoo, while commenting on the budget said it was just a labyrinth of figures.
Criticising the Punjab government for not including the Provincial Finance Award in the Finance Bill, he remarked that monkey business of the distribution of financial resources would continue to the utter dismay of the people of less developed regions and their resultant acute economic deprivation.
He said that there was no good news for the farmers, poor people and non-gazetted government servants in the new budget proposals.
He contested the claim of the Punjab Finance Minister regarding arranging payments to the sugarcane growers from mill owners at the rate Rs 180.
PAT president, Dr Raheeq Ahmed Abbasi, said that this was not the budget of Punjab; rather it was ‘Shahbaz’ Budget. He said that the chief minister kept Rs100b for projects of his liking that include Laptop, Danish Schools and Metro Bus service.