To check Oneindia News on your Mobile
go to:   http://m.oneindia.in/news/
  •  

Budget speech had some lighter moments

New Delhi, Feb 28 (UNI) Members of Parliament heard in rapt attention Finance Minister P Chidambaram reading out his Budget speech except for a brief interruption towards the end, unlike the Railway Budget which was interrupted all through by the agitated NDA opposition shouting slogans trooping into the well of the House on Monday on the Bofors issue.

xxxxx As Mr Chidambaram was coming to the end of his Budget speech,BJP Parliamentary Party Leader V.K.Malhotra broke the silence of the House by asking Mr Chidamabaram,"aam admi ka kya hua(what happend to the common man),prompting other BJP members to raise the matter.Shiv Sena member Anant Geete took up the thread from Mr Malhotra trying to make the point that the Budget contained no provisions for the common man. This provoked Speaker Somnath Chatterjee to say that the intervention during the Budget speech was "extremely unfortunate" and expunging Mr Geete's remark.

xxxxx Many MPs in the House and Rajya Sabha members sitting in the visitors' gallery were seen taking notes from Mr Chidambaram's speech.

xxxxx Some MPs in the House and among the Rajya Sabha members in the visitors gallery were seen dozing off as Mr Chidambaram was reading out his Budget speech.

xxxxx Railway Minister Lalu Prasad left his seat in the Treasury Benches at the beginning of the Budget speech and shared the row with two MPs from Samajwadi Party and TDP all through the proceedings.

xxxxx The reading of the Budget speech was marked by frequent thumping of desks by ruling party members and those from the allies. Congress President Sonia Gandhi also joined occasionally in thumping the desk applauding the Finance Minster.

xxxxx The two hour long Budget speech was conspicuous by the absence of any poetry or Urdu couplets usually forming part of the Budget speeches earliler,except once when the Finance Minister quoted a few lines from the work of a Tamil poet.

xxxxx The Finance Minister's comment during his Budget speech that he had a good news for the dog lovers as duty on pet food for cats and dogs had been reduced from 30 to 20 per cent evoked a peal of laughter from the members provoking some of them to make witty remarks.

UNI

Rural Development, IT, H R D Ministries most favoured in Budget

New Delhi, Feb 28 (UNI) The Ministry of Rural Development has walked away with the lion's share of the Central Plan outlay in the Union Budget for 2007-08. This is in keeping with Finance Minister P Chidambaram's aim to make the budget more ''oriented towards inclusive growth.'' The Communication and IT Ministry is the most favoured by the Finance Minister. Human Resource Development, Power and Railways are the other ministries which have seen maximum hike in their outlays for this year......

Duty cut on petrol, diesel not to affect retail prices: Chidambara

New Delhi, Feb 28 (UNI) There will be no change in the retail prices of petrol and diesel following the duty cut announced in today's Budget, according to Finance Minister P Chidambaram. The duty cut had been factored into the reduction in the retail prices of petrol and diesel by Rs 2 and Re 1 a litre respectively made two weeks ago, the Minister clarified. Addressing a post-Budget press conference, Mr Chidambaram said that when the decision was taken on reducing.....

Hike to social sector, inflation high priority: Chidambaram

New Delhi, Feb 28 (UNI) Finance Minister P Chidambaram in his budget 2007-08 today substantially hiked allocations for social sector and flagship programmes of the UPA Government and announced that agriculture was to be given the highest priority to achieve the targetted growth rate of over 9 per cent. In line with this, the Finance Minister, while presenting his Budget in the Lok Sabha substantially hiked the gross budgetary support to Rs 2,05,100 crore for 2007-08. The hike in allocation.....
User Comments
[ Post Comments ]
Be the first to comment on this article.
Oneindia  Oneindia Login