• Sujal Pradhan, NET Correspondent, Sikkim

The Sikkim Democratic Front (SDF) party alleged that financial health of Sikkim is in jeopardy, since the ruling Sikkim Krantikari Morcha (SKM)-led government has declared economic emergency.

Addressing a press conference on Monday, the Chief Spokesperson of SDF – MK Subba presented a comparative budget analysis of the SKM & SDF Governments; concluding that SDF party has always followed FRBM the guidelines and kept the fiscal deficit below 3%.

While, SKM government has violated all norms; resulting in a fiscal deficit of more than 6 per cent.

“This obviously demonstrates that the state administration is unable to oversee the budget, and that there are numerous anomalies and lack of transparency in project approval and implementation. As a result, the state’s budget health is in grave danger, and now is the time to impose financial emergency.” – Subba remarked.

“Pick any project or plan and there is mismanagement and in the first test, their government passed massive liabilities, but the fact is that SKM itself has failed to manage the budget.” – Subba further added.

He also alleged that “SKM claims to have focused substantially on agriculture sectors such as milk, pigs, and fisheries, however they have not set aside any funds for piggery, fisheries, or milk subsidies. It has ambitiously started milk incentives, but this year they have cut the subsidy budget and also cut the procurement price for quality reasons. This is because their budget health is not good, so they are trying to cut costs, but at the same time they are giving away 50 crore for just a consultancy fee to a hospital in Namchi. This is the conundrum, so overall SKM is in big financial trouble.”