LDF govt presents welfare-oriented budget; Oppn questions exercise

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The LDF government in poll bound Kerala presented a welfare-oriented budget on Friday, hiking social welfare pensions, revising salary of government employees and giving relief for farmers.

It also made hefty allocations for higher education, employment and digital economy.

Though Finance minister Thomas Isaac took a record three hours 18 minutes to read outthe budget for 2021-22 fiscal, the house only passed the vote-on-account for the first four months of the fiscal as the tenure of the current government will end in the coming months. The Opposition Congress and BJP slammed the government for presenting a full budget. Attacking the Left government, Union Minister V Muraleedharan said it had “tried to make the Assembly a venue to announce its election manifesto”, while Congress state chief Mullappally Ramachandran said described the act as ‘politically immoral’. The government also announced eight lakh new jobs for the educated unemployed, hiked pension for Non Resident Keralites returning to the state to rs 3000 and announced 50 per cent reduction in Motor Vehicles tax for the first five years for e vehicles, besides promising various opportunities for women. Significant schemes to explore possibilities of digital technology and innovations in the post-COVID scenario and tap the potential of the work-from-home culture was proposed in the sixth and final budget of the government. Distribution of laptops at subsidized rate for weaker sections, Rs 2,000 crore universities modernisation programme, 2500 new startups, special park to manufacture cancer medicines,52,000 houses for backward communities were among the major announcements.