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SharePatna: Alleging that the Centre has not responded to any of the state's developmental challenges in the union budget, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar today expressed his annoyance to the prime minister.
In a letter to prime minister Manmohan Singh Kumar said that "some of the issues which are central to our development strategy do not find any mention in the union budget".
"If Aila could mean Rs 1000 rehabilitation package for West Bengal, one fails to understand what prevents the Centre from considering Bihar's claim for a package of Rs14,800 crore for rehabilitation following devastation caused by river Kosi, which was declared a national calamity by your good self," he wrote in the letter.
Alleging that development schemes for Bihar would be affected due to the lowering of central allocations, Kumar said the state deserved a mega cluster for its large number of minority hand loom weavers.
Reiterating his demand for according special category status to Bihar, Kumar wrote: "Given our development deficit, low tax base, high population density, poor infrastructure and low energy intensity, according special status is the only way to quickly improve our development matrix and entice private investments".
Criticising the tax proposals of the central budget, he said that it would not only adversely affect the overall balance of the current revenue and the size of state plan this year but would also go against economic principles and democratic processes.
"It is absolutely unacceptable that the tax concessions in the union budget for 2009-10 have been designed to compromise with the rightful entitlement of states in resource shares. This has been done without any consultation with the state governments," Kumar said.
Talking about the much-touted Food Security Scheme of the central government, he said that the scheme would leave at least half of the Bihar's poor population untouched, unless the core issue of the manner in which poverty was measured is sorted out.
On the special package for agriculture sector, he said it would have a marginal impact on Bihar as the credit-deposit ratio is very low and only two per cent of the Rs3,25,000 crore agriculture credit programme would reach Bihar through the priority sector lending route.
The chief minister also complained that the issue of supplying electricity to villages through three phase connectivity instead of present single phase under the Rajiv Gandhi Vidyutikaran Yojana (RGVY) found no mention in the budget.
