Congressmen on Tuesday batted for farmers, weavers, minorities and for making education loans cheaper in the upcoming Budget 2011-12. These were the predictable suggestions made by a bunch of party people to Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee who visited the Congress headquarters to collect their wshlist for the budget.
Pranab is scheduled to present the budget on February 28.
The meeting was attended by the members of standing committee, general secretaries, state unit supervisors, heads of departments of AICC, chiefs of frontal oraganisations and spokespersons. Amontg the top brass present were Prithvi Raj Chavan, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Ambika Soni, Rajiv Shukla, Krishna Tirath and Mukul Wasnik.
Out of expected 82 members 50 were present  and 31 spoke on the budget emphasis.
AICC general secretary Janardan Dwivedi told reporters, "The suggestions were made on various issues like industries, inflation, agriculture. While positive aspects of the issues were discussed concerns were raised on many issues." Price rise, it is believed, was top on the list of concerns.
Prithviraj Chavan said, "Suggestions have been made that the direct transfer of cash should be done to the accounts of beneficiary instead of giving them subsidy."