‘Demands show poor financial planning’

Mumbai: The state government’s alleged failure in maintaining financial discipline has once again come to the fore, with supplementary demands worth Rs 11,445 crores tabled in the legislature on Wednesday.

Every session in the last three-and-a-half years has come with supplementary demands. According to finance experts, this amounts to “alarming mismanagement” of the state exchequer.

Economist Neeraj Hatekar said, “This government is tabling supplementary demands in almost every session, that too for huge sums. Look at the total figure of the supplementary demands. It is almost Rs 1 lakh and 54,000 crores being picked up through supplementary demands. This is the size of the entire budget. This shows how badly the state economy is being managed.”

Columnist on economics, Hemant Desai, expressed “disappointment” over the supplementary demands. “When the Congress-NCP government was in power, Sudhir Mungantiwar and Devendra Fadnavis used to criticise supplementary demands. Now, the BJP government is not only doing the same, the figures of the demands are exceeding the size of the budget. This will lead to further bleeding of the treasury.”

Senior journalist Abhay Deshpande pointed out the items that were being pushed through supplementary demands. “The need for helicopters is genuine. But that could have been done through the main budget. Did they get to know about the need in May or June? This shows how poorly things are being handled,” he said.

Meanwhile, finance minister Mungantiwar justified the need for supplementary demands saying that this expenditure was of the utmost necessity. “We are pushing developmental projects and not using the money on some petty political issues,” he asserted.