Amit Mitra, principal chief advisor to the chief minister and the state finance department, said, “There is no direction of financial growth in this union budget. There is nothing for the poor and middle class. The income tax structure remains unchanged. The Centre’s budget is either a hoax or a lack of goodwill.”
(L-R) Amit Mitra, principal chief advisor to CM, WB CM Mamata Banerjee (PTI file photo)
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee criticised today’s budget which she claimed has no benefits for common people who are getting crushed by unemployment and inflation. She termed it a “Pegasus spin budget”.
Amit Mitra, principal chief advisor to the chief minister and the state finance department, said, “There is no direction of financial growth in this union budget. There is nothing for the poor and middle class. The income tax structure remains unchanged. The Centre’s budget is either a hoax or a lack of goodwill.”
He pointed out that the amount allocated for 100 days of work has been reduced in this year’s budget while the allocation has been reduced from Rs.98,000 crore to Rs.73,000 crore. He sought to point out that there is no allocation for social security schemes. Nothing for senior citizens either.
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“There is no solution for middle-class employees in the budget. About 1.20 crore middle class people lost their jobs in lockdown. What is the allocation for them, or for those families who lost their members to COVID? Nothing ” he lashed out at the Centre. The average Indian middle class, reeling under the impact of Covid-19, pay cuts and inflation were hoping for relief from the Union finance minister, said Mitra, adding, for the farmers, the ‘much-awaited’ budget turned out to be a damp squib.
He observed that fertilizer subsidy is down from Rs 1.34 lakh crore to Rs 79,530 crore in the next financial year; food subsidy from Rs 4.2 lakh crore has come down to Rs 2.4 lakh crore. Meanwhile, according to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, India has around 53 million unemployed people as of December 2021.
The Union Finance Minister, meanwhile, claimed that production-linked incentive schemes will create 60 lakh jobs in the next five years. One can only wonder how this will improve the economy, he remarked. AITC Rajya Sabha MP Derek O’Brien stated, “Diamonds are this government’s best friend. For the rest farmers, middle class, daily earners, unemployed the budget seems more like PM (Does Not) Care”.
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