Dimapur, March 4 (MExN): The Rising People’s Party (RPP) today alleged that the 2024-25 State budget recently passed in the Nagaland Legislative Assembly “lacked imagination and was more or less a con job.” As usual the State budget has nothing for the common person, sports persons, entrepreneurs, elderly, and farmers, etc, it contented.
“Going through the state budget, one gets the feeling that it’s copy-pasted straight from Nirmala Sitharaman’s budget speech,” it added.
Accordingly, it accused the Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio, Minister In-charge of Finance, of “disingenuously” bringing together all the developmental works sponsored by the Government of India (GoI) by way of Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSS) and other donations by private agencies.
All these heads were collated as State budget for the financial year 2024-25 as if these were State Government initiatives for the future, it added.
In this regard, the RPP characterised the NDPP Media and Communication Committee's portrayal of the budget as 'visionary' an extreme display of sycophancy.
The Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP) should first grasp the term “State Budget,” it noted, adding that if the Central government is doling out funds under the CSS or the Government of Japan or the FORTIS Group, Delhi, is constructing hospitals, such activities have nothing to do with state budget. It further wanted to know the correlation between the State Budget and Rs 180 crore being sanctioned for ENPO areas under PM-DevINE.
The RPP further asserted that hosting Khelo India University games has nothing to with the State budget as it was held before the budget was passed and it is an initiative of the Central government.
Again, as budgets are future oriented with probable expenditures and incomes for the coming financial year, the Chief Minister taking credit for the games held in the past for which the State Government did not incur “even a single expenditure” is audacious, it added.
