Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Monday criticised the Union Budget and said that budgetary allocations to different sectors were not specified and the term Gross Domestic Product, or GDP, was mentioned only once in the entire Budget speech by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, ANI reported. On July 5, Sitharaman had presented the first Budget of the Narendra Modi government’s second tenure.
“Term GDP was mentioned only once in the whole budget speech. A key contribution to GDP is not expanding but still the government claims of 7% growth rate,” Tharoor said according to The Indian Express.
Sitharaman had said India would become a $3-trillion economy in the current financial year. She had said structural reforms were needed to achieve the target of becoming a $5-trillion economy by 2024.
Tharoor said that for a common man GDP per capita is what matters and not a $5-trillion economy. He said that a World Bank report based on per capita income still points to India as a low income nation and even countries like Sri Lanka had surpassed India, according to The Hindu.
He also claimed that though the budgetary allocation for agriculture was increased, a major share of it went to the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi, or PM-Kisan, which gives Rs 6,000 as annual income support to farmers with less than two hectares of land. He said the scheme was not adequate to address the problems of farmers in the country. Tharoor said farmers have got zero assistance from the government.
He added that insurance companies have got more help than farmers from Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana and said because of that the enrolment of the scheme has also reduced.
The Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala also said that his state was neglected in the Budget. He said there was no allocation for the rehabilitation of flood-hit Kerala, rubber plantation was not promoted, and people who returned from Gulf countries were being ignored. “You want Gulf remittance, don’t want to help them, when they come back,” The Hindu quoted him as saying. A plea to set up an Ayurvedic research centre in his constituency Thiruvananthapuram has also been ignored, he added.
Meanwhile, Trinamool Congress members also sought to disrupt the parliamentary proceedings. They shouted slogans to protest disinvestment of public sector companies, PTI reported.
TMC members including Derek O’Brien and Sukhendu Sekhar Roy protested and repeatedly asked the Chair to permit them to raise the issue of disinvestment of state-run firms during the Zero Hour. However, Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu did not allow them to raise the issue and said members should not resort to such measures.
Earlier in the day, MPs from the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam had walked out during the Zero Hour to protest against the President’s refusal to give assent to two Bills unanimously passed by Tamil Nadu Assembly seeking exemption from National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test.
Opposition criticises increase of fuel prices
In Lok Sabha, the Opposition mounted pressure on the government to withdraw the increased duty on petrol and diesel in the Budget. In her first Budget speech on Friday, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said that the government will increase excise duty and road cess by Rs 1 per litre of fuel.
“The common man is already paying the highest fuel prices in the world because of this government’s tax on petrol and diesel at a time when the prices of fuel are dropping worldwide,” said Shashi Tharoor.
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam MP TR Baalu said rise in fuel price will have a “cascading impact” on prices. “Common man will suffer because of increase in prices of petrol and diesel... why common man is being punished like that?” he asked. Baalu also suggested that fuel prices should be brought within the purview of the Goods and Services Tax.
Trinamool Congress member Kalyan Banerjee asked why the government raised the fuel prices when the crude prices in the global market were on a downward trend for the last three months.
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