Chandrababu Naidu terms Central Budget as ''anti-poor''

Hyderabad, Feb 28 (UNI) Describing the Central Budget as ''anti-poor, anti-farmers and anti-handicraft persons'', Telugu Desam Party (TDP) President N Chandrababu Naidu today said the government had not taken any measures to control inflation which had gone up to 6.7 per cent.

Addressing a press conference here, he said the budget had totally neglected the agricultural sector and agro-based industries in the country.

He said Finance Minister P Chidambaram has submitted an 'impractical' budget and failed to take steps to increase agricultural production in the country. The budget had neglected the rural areas and also small scale industries in the country.

Mr Naidu alleged that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the Finance Minister were only worried about the growth rate and were not concerned about human beings.

Referring to the 9.2 per cent growth announced by the Finance Minister, he said agricultural growth was only 2.7 per cent while 50 to 60 per cent of the population is depended on agriculture and agriculture-related sector.

He said unemployment has increased tremendously in both rural and urban areas of the country. The country was facing food scarcity and the government had failed to bring more land under agriculture to increase the agricultural production.

The TDP president further said in the name of Special Economic Zones (SEZ), several thousands of agricultural lands were being converted into industrial lands, affecting agricultural production.

He said the government has been collecting more indirect taxes by way of 12.5 per cent service tax, burdening the middle class population of the country.

He alleged that the Public Distribution System in the country had totaly collapsed and the government's National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme was confined to ''assurance'' only, adding The budget would only help the rich people and failed to remove disparities between the rich and poor.

UNI