Opposition calls budget anti-poor, pro-corporate

Opposition on Monday slammed the NDA government's first full fledged budget saying it against the poor and the middle class and largely favours the corporates.

Participating in the discussion on general budget in the Lok Sabha, members of various parties like Congress, AIADMK, Trinamool Congress and BJD said the government had reduced allocation for social welfare and anti-poverty programmes while giving benefits to corporates and focusing on FDI.

To target the government, many members specifically raised issues like increase in service tax, no change in income tax slab and failure to pass on the benefit of reducing petroleum prices to consumers.

Some non-NDA and non-Congress members also alleged that the budget was just a re-packaging of UPA's budget.

BJP, however, defended the budget saying it was pro-poor and accused opposition of criticising it just for the sake of it.

Initiating the debate, Veerappa Moily (Cong) said most of the initiatives announced in the budget were started during the time of the UPA.

The governemnt is lucky and reaping the fruits of low oil prices and the award of the 14th Finance Commission, which was set up by the previous regime, said the former minister for Corporate Affairs and Petroleum and Natural Gas.

He regretted that the government decided to postpone the fiscal consolidation programme by one year despite the benign fiscal environment, driven mainly by fall in crude oil prices in the intertnational market.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's budget has failed to provide roadmaps for either implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) from April 1, 2016 or reduction of the corporate tax from 30% to 25%, he said.

Moily further said the budget did not talk about Special Economic Zones (SEZs) and the NDA government has not done anything to deal with the problem of black money.

Moreover, he added, the concerns about the economic situation have been expressed by investment banker Morgan Stanley and renowned banker Deepak Parekh.

AIADMK leader M Thambidurai said the budget had fallen short of expectations and countered the contention of the Modi government that allocation to states by implementing the Finance Commission had increased by 10%.

Alleging that Tamil Nadu had been unfairly treated in the 14th Finance Commission, he said while on one hand the allocation has been increased, on the other hand the Centre was ploughing back the resources from states through various provisions like abolition of Wealth Tax.

Thambidurai, who is also the Lok Sabha Deputy Speaker, accused the government of favouring the corporates and focussing on getting foreign funds through FDI while reducing incentives for the poor and the middle class.

While terming it as a budget against the common man, he said it had increased indirect taxes and objected to the hike in Service Tax by 2 per cent. He also faulted the government for not raising the Income Tax slab, saying it had left the middle class disappointed.

The AIADMK member said the reduction in global prices of petrol had not been passed on to consumers in equal scale.

"It is high time... there is criticism also. Try to see that the common man is benefitted and not the corporates," he said.

The intention of the government in the budget may have been good but "it is a bureaucratic budget, not common man's budget... I don't find any difference between UPA's and your budget... It is not NDA budget, it is UPA-III budget." While criticising Centre's policies, Thambidurai cited examples of policies put in place by AIADMK leader and former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa in the state like schemes for free rice and gold ornaments for BPL people.

"Achche din (good days) will come only when you benefit the poor... Give to the poor first and then development will come," he said and asked the government to not benefit the corporates too much.

B Mahtab (BJD) said since Narendra Modi government had come to power with full majority after 20 years of fractured mandate, there was expectation that the budget will take "great strides".

But it is unfortunate that these have not been met as the middle class has not been provided any tax benefit and neither has funds been earmarked for them. Instead, haircut and cell phones will become costlier as per the budget proposals, he said.

The BJD member said the revenue receipts have remained almost stagnant with a marginal hike. He also lamented the decrease in share for Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojna, flood management programme Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan.