Budget 2017: President lauds note recall, surgical strike in pre-Budget session address

NEW DELHI: The government said it was committed to ‘sabka saath, sabka vikas’ while listing demonetisation, fight against black money, surgical strike against Pakistan, implementation of onerank-one-pension and other welfare schemes as achievements.

President Pranab Mukherjee in his customary address to the joint sitting of the two Houses at the start of the Budget session highlighted the government’s various schemes and said that they have benefited the weaker sections of society. In a speech sprinkled with several Hindi words, he underlined on how the government had fought the menace of terrorism and corruption.

“To combat the evils of blackmoney, corruption, counterfeit currency and terror financing, my government took the decision on November 8, 2016, to demonetise old`500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes,” Mukherjee said, adding that the government had taken a decision in its first Cabinet meeting to form a special investigation team on black money and passed legislations on curbing black money and benami transactions.



Prime Minister Narendra Modi thumped the desk for a long time when the President mentioned the September 29 surgical strike.

“My government has taken decisive steps to give a fitting reply to the repeated incursions on our territorial sovereignty… our defence forces successfully conducted surgical strikes at several launch pads along the Line of Control to prevent infiltration by terrorists.” The government’s commitment to fight terrorism, especially in Jammu and Kashmir, was emphasised too.

Pranab Mukherjee also lauded the government’s achievements in fighting Maoists and militants in the northeast. The President also brought up the issue of holding simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha and state assemblies, and welcomed a constructive debate on the issue.

“Frequent elections put on hold development programmes, disrupt normal public life and impact essential services and burden human resource with prolonged periods of election duty,” Mukherjee said.

The President said the Goods and Services Tax Bill has taken forward the concept of cooperative federalism and one-nation-one tax and one nation-one market. “17 states governed by political parties across the political spectrum ratified this in a record 23 days.

My government is thankful to the GST Council for working to resolve outstanding issues,” President Mukherjee said. After Pranab Mukherjee finished his speech, T Siva of DMK raised the issue of farmer suicides in Tamil Nadu.