| শিরোনাম | সূত্র | তারিখ |
| প্রথম জাতীয় বাজেট আলোচনাকালে পূর্ব বাংলার দাবীদাওয়ার প্রশ্নে বিতর্ক | পাকিস্তান গণপরিষদ (আইন সভা) | ১লা মার্চ, ১৯৪৮ |
THE GENERAL BUDGET-GENERAL DISCUSSION
Constituent Assembly (Legislature)
[1st March, 1948]
Constituent Assembly (Legislature) of Pakistan Debates
VOL. 1 of 1948
Prof. Rajkumar Chakraverty (East Bengal: General):..... Sir, I congratulate the Honorable the Finance Member on his admirable speech with which he presented the Budget before this House. It was full of high sentiments and noble emotions for Pakistan which we all fully share. We have his assurance that not a single Pie would be spent so long as, according to the Finance Minister, it is an avoidable item of expenditure. We also learn that his maxim for the Finance Department is that inescapability must be the criterion of all future expenditure.
Sir, we fully share his difficulties also in presenting the first Budget of the Pakistan Government, as he has said that he has begun almost from scratch and he has to build up the future, worthy of Pakistan. But, Sir I cannot congratulate him on the contents of the Budget and the way in which he has presented the Budget before this House. The Budget lacks a sense of realism. I wish to add that in spite of his best intentions, he has not been able fully to avoid the old, outmoded way of presenting the Budget. The Budget should have been really a deficit Budget, but he has shown it to be a surplus one, and that too at the cost of poor men and the common men. Sir, the test of a Budget is not whether it is a deficit Budget or a surplus one. The test of the Budget lies in the fact whether it leads to the greatest good of the greatest member of people whether it has anything for the Common man and considered in that light the Budget has not came out as a successful one. Sir, the Honorable the Finance Member has continued the tax on the poor man's salt, which is a very essential commodity of the common man. He has increased the excise duty on hookah tobacco, which is the solace of the life of poor people. He has increased the rates of excise duty on betel nut which is another joy in the life of the Common man. He has increased the rates of the inland postcards which are very necessary in the life of the common man every day. He has increased the duty on kerosene, knowing very well that 99 per cent of the people of this land cannot do without kerosene and they have not got their houses electrically lit. He has increased the third class railway fares knowing very well that their journey is anything but comfortable while traveling in the third class. He has not only given no relief to the poor man and the common man, but he has hit them hard and he has kicked them too. The poor people will groan during the year to come under the measures of taxation he has proposed in the Budget. Sir, the Budget, he has presented follows the old bureaucratic method. He has
