New Delhi, Feb 8 (FN Agency) As the Lok Sabha took up the debate on General Budget on Tuesday, a demand was made by an MP to have separate budget on education and health, in view of the impact of Covid-19 pandemic over the citizens’ health. AIMIM MP Imtiaz Jaleel said the government should present a separate Budget for education and healthcare, and also suggested calling a special session of Parliament to discuss these sectors. “I would request the government and all members that we should have a separate budget for health and education. I would request the Finance Minister to call a special session to discuss education and healthcare in the country,” he said. “Not everyone died of Covid-19, our medical infrastructure was unwell. We were caught unaware, now it is high time to focus on how to increase it,” he said, calling for transparency in the PM Cares fund.
“There is lack of transparency in the PM Care Fund collected by the people of this country in the name of PM. Why are we not disclosing it? I request the government that all funds under the PM care must be brought to accountability,” he said. Former prime minister HD Deve Gowda, meanwhile, warned the government against interlining of rivers. “Karnataka is one of the states, which is going to suffer very badly, even for drinking water. That is going to be the major issue when the present Budget indicates linking of rivers,” Devegowda said. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in her Budget speech, had announced five river links – Damanganga-Pinjal, Par-TapiNarmada, Godavari-Krishna, Krishna-Pennar and Pennar-Cauvery. Biju Janata Dal (BJD) MP Bhartruhari Mahtab spoke about paddy procurements suffering in the state, and said that repeated requests by the state government for paddy procurement is not being heeded to by the center. He said Telangana was facing a similar problem. Shiv Sena MP Arvind Sawant slammed the government, saying that the labour laws were forcing the people to come on streets. “No one gets a permanent job. Did you ever think about people who lost their jobs? The labour laws brought them on road,” Sawant said. Talking about Spice Jet, he said 463 people were fired.
“Did you ask them how you fired them? There was a bond, so it was legal. Our constitutional rights are being snatched”. Sawant also said that MTNL and BSNL were dying, and that the government had agreed to bail them to Vodafone-Idea. “BSNL, MTNL is your own company, Ravi Shankar Prasad was saying we are working on it….” Sawant said, to which Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman replied that it was a not true. “On BSNL, you are not speaking the truth. BSNL was in such a bad shape, it was not given money to buy 4G. The staff was not getting salary. We provided all the payments,” she said. She said Sawant was misleading the House, and said the government was giving BSNL money to buy 4G. “BSNL has lost out…,” she added.