GUWAHATI, March 17 - The Assam Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) has dared Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma to make public the data concerning implementation of the State Budget in the past two years.
In a statement here, APCC spokesman Rhituparna Konwar alleged that as per information provided by the Finance Department, even preliminary works on several schemes announced in the last Budget were yet to start. Moreover, the State Government has failed to spend major amounts of the funds allocated for the schemes in its Budget last year.
The Central government is reducing grants to the State, and depriving the State of its special status has also led to the loss of thousands of crores of rupees the State used to get earlier as Central allocations, the APCC spokesman said.
A death knell is ringing for the public sector enterprises of the State. The health and education sectors are facing a lot of problems, and the State Government has failed to find a solution to the burgeoning unemployment problem. The common people are now facing a gloomy situation, he said.
Despite all these, the Finance Minister is trying to project a rosy picture of the State�s finances, which is nothing but a trick to hoodwink the people, he added.
