Over the next 12 months, the Andhra Pradesh government is going to spend Rs. 63,683 crores of public money. And no one is going to ask how, why and where the money is going to go. Agreed that the Assembly was stalled by the Opposition on Gangavaram incident. Agreed that April 1st was nearing and the Government needed money to carry on. But what was the need to pass the whole budget in such a hurried fashion? Why couldn’t the Finance Minister, Rosiah, who fancies wearing honesty on his sleeves, collar and all over his kurta, pass a vote-on-account instead? Even in the event of non-disruption of the house, the budget could in no way be discussed in such a short span of time. It is a convention at the Centre that the Parliament passes a vote-on-account budget to release funds for two months, during which the budget proposals are discussed in greater detail. YSR & Co has taken AP government to the pinnacle financial impropriety. All that I would now pray is that he wouldn’t come up with supplementaries later this year. And let us hope that next year we would have atleast a discussion, if not a debate, on the budget.
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
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4 comments:
but the opposition is equally at fault. they presented fraudulent figures (by Chandrababu's own confession) about the Ellampalli project and held the assembly session to ransom over what was, in the first place, falsified numbers. where was a chance to discuss or debate?
Agreed. But as I said previously, and again say, even if there was no disruption, a budget cannot be discussed in a few days. Leave the opposition, atleast the Congress MLAs should be able to study the budget and give their suggestions. In any case, they should have passed a vote-on-account and given the opposition and congress MLAs enough time to study and then be back for discussion. However, if they had again disrupted, then they could have passed it the way they did.So I would apportion a major part of the blame to the ruling party.
If you remember in 2004 , the whole of India's budget was passed in the same way as BJP couldnt come over its surprise loss. If India can spend money without checks so can AP i suppose.
A nice reference would be to read Bimal Jalans book where he talks about this phenomenon more in depth
Firstly, in 2004, it was the opposition that choose to let go the chance. And at July, you cant afford to pass another vote-on-account.
Secondly, two wrongs dont make a right.
An lastly, i am grateful that you dint quote some precedent from Bihar assembly.
And thanks for the reference. I hope the book is not too boring (read economical)
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