Dimapur, July 11 (MExN): While the state Congress party – the main opposition party in Nagaland – might have termed the state’s 2009-2010 budget as a ‘real cunning budget’, the citizens of the state remains by and large unaware of or simply indifferent to what implications the Rs 949 crore deficit budget would mean to them.
“What’s a budget?” a BA college student in one reputed Arts College of Kohima said. “Deficit means minus!” said a working woman in Dimapur as a matter-of-fact, while expressing her inability to analysis what the implications would mean to her and the Naga economy. For so long, the Naga society has ignored budgets or the importance of a budget for the state. The annual budget is simply forgotten once the assembly sessions are over.
“People don’t care as long as they get their salary,” said an LDA in one government department in Dimapur, “and the budget is simply an annual affair for the politicians.” Some other people who were randomly selected and contacted had more or less the same opinion: budget means nothing.
A lecturer in Dimapur Government College, when contacted for his opinion on the budget, said the deficit implies that there is a financial gap in the financial condition of the state coffers and that more revenue has to be generated to bridge that financial gap. However, given the fact that Nagaland, which has no heavy industry and income-generating sectors, the lecturer (who teaches management in college), said the only way the state can bridge the “financial gap” is through central funds. However, he assured that as Nagaland enjoys a special status under the constitution of India, the central funds ‘would surely come through its way’. He said “credit” will be available for the state, however the state government has to cut down on its “unproductive expenditure” if it really wants to bridge the financial gap. Or else, it grows bigger till embargo.
A senior journalist based in Kohima, working for a national daily and who has been reporting on the budget session for many years, remain unimpressed with the recent budget presented by Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio. He asserted that the term ‘pro-people and tax free budget’ as declared by Rio could mean nothing but ‘political rhetoric’ to win the favour of the people. Terming the deficit budget as a serious matter, he pointed to the rampant corruption in Nagaland. He also cited instances like ‘bogus appointment’ of teachers and mismanagement of institutional funds. Assuring that the centre would surely allocate funds for the state to function, the senior journalist, however maintained that the Nagaland government must carefully plan how to utilize funds received by the state.
Another senior journalist in Dimapur refused to comment saying that he has not gone through the entire budget presented by the chief minister. The budget of states and countries are considered the most important aspect of an economy and which ultimately determines market scenario of the nation or the state (even the Sensex registered a negative response to the central budget recently). But in Nagaland, the budget remains simply one-day affair and has no real consequence on the economy of the state. The reason is that the state receives a major chunk of its funds from the center.
For now, the people in Nagaland have yet to worry about the importance of budget or what the budget has in store for them. But a question remains: How long will central funds keep flowing into the state before things come to misery?
