Mumbai: The congress unit of Maharashtra on Saturday claimed that the Union Budget is just a maze of numbers and mess, adding that the farmers are in crisis as they are protesting for the guaranteed price for their agricultural products but there has not been a single word about them in the budget.
Speaking with the media on the budget presented by Finance Minister Nirmla Sitharaman Maharashtra congress chief Nana Patole said that the highest number of farmer suicides are taking place in Maharashtra, while there is a demand for loan waiver for farmers, the BJP government has not announced loan waiver.
He added that increasing the Kisan Credit Card limit from Rs 3 lakh to Rs 5 lakh will not benefit the farmers.
“Inflation is increasing at a high rate, unemployment has increased tremendously, and there is no concrete plan for job creation,” he said.
He added that the Union government has announced that there is no tax up to Rs 12 lakh in income tax, but there is confusion in it too.
“It seems that this announcement had to be made for the benefit of the salaried class and middle class after BJP’s chariot stopped at 240 against its slogan of 400 plus,” he said.
He said that instead of providing substantial funds in the budget for the MGNREGA scheme, which provides employment to the poor in rural areas, the funds have been cut.
“There is no substantial provision in the budget for two important sectors, health and education. The promise of providing two crore jobs every year was made in 2014, but in the last 11 years, not only have jobs not been provided, but there is the worst unemployment crisis. There is no concrete policy in the budget regarding employment generation and jobs. The common man has not been given concessions to fulfil his dream of housing and GST has not been reduced,” said Patole.
He said that Bihar was mentioned consistently in the budget but no other state including Maharashtra was mentioned.
“Bihar is going to have Assembly elections soon, so the Finance Minister has deliberately mentioned Bihar in the budget. The negative response of the stock market immediately after the budget was presented means that this budget has not met the expectations,” he said.
Meanwhile, the party general secretary Sachin Sawant said that the budget has made it clear that the direction of economic policies has been wrong for the last ten years and the policy of the Congress party was right.
“For the last ten years, the government was focused on increasing supply. Corporate tax was reduced by Rs 1.5 lakh crore, but corporate profits did not increase and employment did not increase. Even though corporate loans were written off by banks, neither private investment nor exports increased. During this period, the current account deficit increased and the trade deficit did not decrease,” he said.
He added that the foreign direct investment, which was 3.6 per cent of the gross domestic product during the UPA government, came down to 0.8 per cent.
“Foreign institutions are fleeing the stock market as corporates are not making profits. However, the purchasing power of the people has fallen to its lowest level in the last twenty years,” said Sawant.