Patna Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar described the union budget 2023-24 presented by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in Parliament on Wednesday by as “disappointing and lacking vision”.
“Every year, priorities are changed and remain unfulfilled due to lack of focus and sufficient funds. Bihar is once again neglected and our demand for special status for the state has been ignored. The inclusive development of the country will remain a distant dream without the development of poor states like Bihar,” said the CM.
He said that Bihar had requested for a special package of ₹20,000 crore during the pre-budget meeting of state finance ministers, which has been ignored in the budget 2023-24. No attention has been paid to the financial condition of the state. “There is no concrete road map of employment generation for the youth in the current budget. The borrowing limit of the states has not been increased despite a memorandum submitted to keep it at 4.5% (4% +0.5% conditional), which would have led to employment generation and development of the economically backward states,” Kumar said.
Regarding the seven priorities (Saptarishi) of the government in the budget, the CM said these are just the repackaging of ongoing central schemes. “Bihar government has already been successfully implementing the new schemes under 7-Nischay since 2016 and 7- Nischay-II since 2021. Just following the pattern of 7- Nischay schemes of the Bihar government, they have announced seven priorities without adequate funding provisions. Overall, this budget has nothing substantial for the economic growth of Bihar,” he said.
Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee (BPCC) president Akhilesh Prasad Singh dubbed the budget as disheartening and said it has no vision for development of Bihar, growth of trade and industries and prosperity to its people. “The relief in income tax would have been relevant had the central government sought to create employment for nine crore people rendered jobless in the past eight years. No new train has been announced for Bihar,” said Singh, adding that industrialists like Adani would benefit from huge investments in infrastructure sector.
{{/usCountry}}Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee (BPCC) president Akhilesh Prasad Singh dubbed the budget as disheartening and said it has no vision for development of Bihar, growth of trade and industries and prosperity to its people. “The relief in income tax would have been relevant had the central government sought to create employment for nine crore people rendered jobless in the past eight years. No new train has been announced for Bihar,” said Singh, adding that industrialists like Adani would benefit from huge investments in infrastructure sector.
{{/usCountry}}Industry’s response
The Bihar Industries Association (BIA) hailed the budget as development oriented, but expressed its dismay over “marginalisation of Bihar”.
BIA president Arun Agarwal said it can be called a budget to accelerate development as it has identified seven areas, including infrastructure, and has drawn the outline of the Saptarishi model of development. “Special emphasis has been laid on infrastructure development, for which the capital outlay has been hiked to ₹10 lakh crore by increasing the Capex fund by 33%,” he said.
He, however, hastened to add that the budget seemed disappointing from Bihar’s point of view as the Centre refrained from announcing any special package for the laggard state.
The government has announced an allocation of ₹9000 crore in the CGTMSE corpus to support the micro, small and medium sector enterprise (MSMEs) sector. “This will allow collateral free loan to MSME sector. Although the limit of loan has been kept ₹2 crore only, new MSMEs will benefit from the corpus fund,” Agarwal said.
The BIA also welcomed the announcements to boost tourism and non-conventional energy sector.
The Bihar Chamber of Commerce and Industries (BCCI), however, expressed its mixed reaction to the Union Budget, saying it lacked efforts to motivate big industries like those dealing in steel, aluminium and petrochemicals, to invest in backward state like Bihar. “Special category status to Bihar would have been a great push to attract big ticket investment,” said BCCI president PK Agarwal. The chamber, however, appreciated the budgetary boost to MSME, infrastructure, health, aviation and tourism sectors on which Bihar can reap benefits.
Bakshi Amit Kumar of Asian Research Development Institute (ADRI), a Patna-based think-tank, termed the budget as disappointing for the people of Bihar, who were expecting special package or special assistance to the state. “Bihar will face a cut in the central transfers under Finance Commission grants by substantial amounts. This budget has no long-term vision. The seven priority areas are rational but this budget has no blueprint for achieving these priorities. Overall, this budget is neither populist nor realistic,” said Kumar.