2022-02-08 08:26:04
Cut in funds for welfare schemes; no steps for inflation or job creation: Shashi Tharoor on BudgetInitiating the discussion on the Budget in the Lok Sabha, he said COVID-19 pandemic placed the citizens in unimaginable distress and they suffered a lot of pain due to loss of lives between March and May last year.
Attacking the Centre, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Monday said there were significant cuts in allocation of social welfare schemes in the Union Budget and there were no measures to address rising inflation or targeted efforts towards job creation.
Initiating the discussion on the Budget in the Lok Sabha, he said COVID-19 pandemic placed the citizens in unimaginable distress and they suffered a lot of pain due to loss of lives between March and May last year.
In this context, he said, the presentation of a budget annually cannot merely be seen as purely routine economic exercise, rather it is an instrument through which the government of the day presents a political vision to manage the economy, heal the country and to set it on the path to recovery.
There is a “significant slashing of the MNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) scheme, more tokenism in credit support for the MSME sector, no changes in the personal income tax regime and no relief in terms of addressing rising inflation, no targeted efforts for job creation”, he said.
The budget has proposed creation of “inadequate” 60 lakh jobs in five years which is “a far cry from the 2 crore jobs the government had promised in the equally illusory ‘acche din’ (good days)”, Tharoor said.
He added that there are reductions in the budget for social welfare programmes, schemes for crop insurance, MSP (minimum support price) and fertlisers, which have leD many farmer groups to term this Budget a “revenge budget”.
The Congress leader also claimed a huge dip in the incomes of lakhs of people in the last five years.
While the wealth of thw richest 100 Indians soared by Rs 57 lakh crore, 4.7 crore Indians slipped into extreme poverty, he said, adding that the government has not recognised the problems which they have caused and the widespread anguish they have inflicted on the common people.
The Congress leader said that the budget has not meet the expectations of the middle class and the poor.
He said there were three broad expectations the nation had from the budget. The first one was that the government would acknowledge the problem the nation is facing, acknowledge that the country is facing unprecedented levels of unemployment which has left countless citizens, specially young and dynamic working age population, with little prospects for a brighter tomorrow, Tharoor said.
The government, he said, admitted that one-fifth of India’s population has plunged a staggering 53 per cent in the last five years in terms of their income.
The government should have also acknowledged that the Indian middle class has been left defenceless in the face of rising inflation, shrinking incomes and the consequent acceleration in household debt, besides recognising the widespread distress and anguish in the agrarian economy, he said.
On the contentious farm laws, he said the legislations drove hundreds of farmers to sit for protest in cold winters, harsh summer sun and in the soaking monsoon rain, in a cause for which over 670 of them gave their lives.
The former minister criticised the government for allegedly having scant regard for the fundamental conventions or institutions of the country that have traditionally guided India’s democracy.
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