NE in Union Budget
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: March 01, 2013 -
As expected, the ruling party has given thumbs up while the Opposition front thumbed it down.
The usual game one is not fortunate enough to miss at the time of presenting the Union Budget in the Parliament year after year.
While appreciating the Union Budget, 2013-14, which was presented by Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram in the Parliament today (February 28), Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has patted Chidambaram for 'a commendable job' in containing the deficit while simultaneously addressing the growth imperatives.
On the other hand, the BJP and its allied in the NDA have expressed disappointment over the 8th Union Budget presented by Chidambaram on the floor of the Parliament.
Leading the brigade, leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj has gone on to describe it as the most 'dull and boring budget', saying, "We were expecting agriculture and infrastructure based budget, but we are disappointment. They have not given anything... The Finance Minister could not see the face of the farmer and common man."
The outburst of Sushma Swaraj was understandable from the fact that the Economic Survey, 2013-14 which was tabled in the Parliament a day before the presentation of the Union Budget, indeed, had raised the expectations that agriculture and manufacture sector will increase and inflation will decrease.
But this, of course, has not been reflected anywhere with the Finance Minister doing a tightrope walking keeping in mind the Parliamentary election next year.
Leaving side this normal fare of the Opposition and the Ruling to lock-horn over anything, be it the Railway Budget or the Union Budget, we may take some time off and ponder over what does the Union Budget for the fiscal year 2013-14 offers for the people in the Northeast region including Manipur.
The assurance of declaring the Lakhipur-Bhanga stretch of river Barak in Assam as the sixth national waterway and the proposed regional road link between Northeast and Myanmar with assistance from multilateral development banks may have been hailed as a big leap in India's Look East Policy by some political analysts.
But it is hard to ignore fact that the so-called 'first decisive step towards realization of Look East Policy' is in reality a move that has been promoted by an urgency from security point of view to counter the growing influence of China in Myanmar, and it has got nothing to do with bringing the people of the Southeast Asian countries who share close cultural and historical links physically or economically.
In what he claims to be a combining of the Look East Policy and the interests of the Northeast States, the Union Finance Minister has also proposed to seek the assistance of multilateral development banks like the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank to build roads in Northeastern States to connect with Myanmar.
But, as economist Prof Elangbam Bijoykumar has pointed out in his Budget analysis, people in the State would really like to know what has happened to the survey of the World Bank conducted a few years back for construction of roads in Manipur and the recommendations made?
An answer to this question by the Union Finance Minister could have spared the National media from the trouble of going ga-ga over what that concludes as the first decisive step for Look East Policy in Union Budget, 2013-14.
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