Complimenting Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee for trying to replicate the success of Bihar government in implementing conditional cash transfers, JD (U) MP N K Singh on Thursday said it was important that best practices developed within the country are not only encouraged but also scaled up so as to benefit larger number of people.
Participating in the discussion on general budget in the Rajya Sabha, Singh said Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s initiatives of providing direct cash transfers for specific schemes like bicycles for girl students or coupons for kerosene had proved to be a great success.
“I compliment the Finance Minister for not borrowing from examples of other countries but rather from examples of best practices available in India and replicating them to cover the whole of the country,†Singh said.
Mukherjee, in his budget speech, had announced that the government was considering options of making direct cash transfers to the targeted population for buying kerosene or fertilisers, instead of subsidising these products.
Singh, however, was critical of many other aspects of the budget. He said reduction in oil subsidy at a time when oil prices were rising and a drop in fertiliser subsidy when agriculture sector was in dire need of encouragement were areas of concern. He said the Rs. 400 crore earmarked for initiating a green revolution in eastern India was ‘bad window dressing’ since a state like Bihar alone requires about Rs. 4000 crore for agricultural impetus.