Date:01/03/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/03/01/stories/2008030158000300.htm

Andhra Pradesh - Vijayawada

It’s election budget: students

Staff Reporter

VIJAYAWADA: The KBN College organised a meeting on ‘General Budget 2008-09’ on its campus on Friday, where students, teachers and auditors expressed their opinions freely calling the Union budget an “election budget” and solely aimed at pleasing various sections of society in the country.

Several students actively participated in the discussion, saying the budget had features of populism not witnessed in the country earlier. The doling out of loan waiver for farmers to the tune of several thousands of crores was along expected lines that the government would come out with please-all features this year.

Auditors Linga Murthy and G. Gangadhar said that taken as a whole, the budget was welcome and good for the people. They said that the loans waiver was, indeed, a boost for the farm sector. Similarly, there were several other features that make it attractive and satisfactory.

PG centre director K.R. Satyanarayana said loan waiver might be welcome now, but it would have negative impact on the interests of farmers in the long run. In future, banks would be discouraged to giving loans to farmers and interest rates might also go up after some time.