Lahore-The Opposition in Punjab Assembly on Monday, terming the provincial budget a pack of lies, remarked that the ruling party of the province had set no visible priorities for farmers and the working class in the proposed budget.
Leaders of opposition parties in Punjab Assembly including PTI, PML-Q and PPP expressing their dismay over the Punjab Budget 2013-14 claimed that PML-N government has mandated a great injustice to the people of largest province of the country by presenting a visionless budget document.
Mian Mehmood-ur-Rasheed, Opposition Leader in Punjab Assembly commenting over thePunjabbudget on Monday said, “The provincial government has not allocated a single penny for the local bodies, which establishes the fact it is not serious in local bodies polls to transfer power to the grass-root level.”
He said more than 50,000 public schools lacked basic facilities, while the provincial government was wasting public funds on Laptop andDaanishSchoolprojects.
Mehmood said the PML-N government also announced to continue Aashiana Housing Scheme without clearing the basic fact that no poor could afford to buy a house worth 1.3 million rupees. The Opposition Leader, while demanding 50 per cent cut in the expenditure of the Chief Minister Secretariat and at the headquarters of provincial civil bureaucracy, said 10 per cent increase in the salaries of the government employees was not sufficient.
He said the farmers had been ignored in the budget proposals and the proposals announced for them were too meager to meet their needs.
PML-Q’s members provincial assembly, Aamir Sultan Cheema, Sardar Waqas Hassan Moakal, Sameena Khawar Hayat and Ahmad Shah Khagga terming thePunjabbudget a pack of lies and fraud with the people of the province remarked that the budget had given no vision to improve the economic condition of the province and meeting the challenge of unemployment. PML-Q members said that provincial government despite accepting the energy crisis as the foremost issue proposed only 20 billion rupees for the energy projects to be carried out by the province, however the same rulers had wasted 70 billion rupees of the public on a visionless project of Metro Bus.
They claimed that PML-N had allocated huge funds forSouth Punjabduring their last stint in power but they never released the same.
PPP parliamentary leader in Punjab Assembly, Qazi Ahmed Saeed, talking about the provincial budget, said it was not a pro-people budget, as the bureaucracy prepared the budget which had no idea of the problems of the common man.
He said provincial finance minister had no idea about the facts and figures of the budget and he read what the bureaucracy had written in the budget document.
He said it was a visionless budget document, which offered no relief either to the working class or the farmers.
Qazi said 10 per cent increase in the salaries of government employees was not sufficient and it should be at least 15 per cent.
PPP leader said provincial government had not announced any mega project and the budget session was looking like a PML-N public meeting.