Former Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Wednesday made a blistering attack on the Union Budget 2024-25 in the Rajya Sabha and said it showed the government was not serious about unemployment or inflation; free foodgrains for 81 crore people showed people cannot afford food, and a virtual death knell has been sounded for federalism by offering Central largesse to a couple of States only.

Speaking about major themes, he said unemployment is the biggest challenge. The Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMEI) estimated the all India unemployment rate in June 2024 at 9.2 per cent. It may have come down, but a wrong picture has been projected.

Against the earlier production linked incentive (PLI), which did not perhaps create the jobs envisaged, the government has come with an employment-linked incentive (ELI) but its value would be known later only. It did not inspire confidence that it will be able to place 290 lakh people under it.

Mr Chidambaram said the seriousness of the unemployment is clear from a few instances like when the UP police department conducted an examination for 60,244 vacancies, 48 lakh people applied, and it was cancelled a couple days later.

Air India wanted to fill 2,216 vacancies for diverse jobs like repair and maintenance and 25,000 people turned up at Mumbai airport, and police were called. A private company in Gujarat had five vacancies, 1,000 people barged in; while Madhya Pradesh advertised 15 vacancies for low skilled jobs and 11,000 applications were received, among them from post-graduates and MBAs.

The best illustration was from the Staff Selection Commissions, Mr Chidambaram said. The UP Commission conducted examination for 7500 posts and 24,74,030 applied and yet the RBI said a few weeks back said there is no job crisis in India.

RBI is supposed to be cautious, conservative and neutral, he said. “You are cautious, conservative but not neutral. I suggest unemployment be taken seriously,” the former Finance Minister said.

He said the Finance Minister had dismissed inflation in just 10 words, “is it so trivial,” he said. The WPI inflation is 3.4 per cent, CPI inflation is 5.1 retail, food inflation is 9.4 per cent, he said. Go to the Kalahandi-Bolangir-Koraput (KBK) districts of Odisha, inflation will be much higher than 3.4 per cent, or 5.1 per cent etc at such places.

The Chief Economic Advisor of the government has a degree of autonomy and said in the Economic Survey that inflation is low, stable and continues to move towards the four per cent target. “It has been moving for the last four years,” he said.

If it was so, why did the RBI not reduce the bank rate lower than 6.5 per cent for the last 13 months, he said. “Inflation is humiliating. You are not taking inflation seriously. Out of 13 recent by-elections, 10 were won by INDIA (bloc). This was a warning administered to you,” he said.

In such a situation, the government claims the growth rate to be 8.2 per cent last year, and this will be 6.5 per cent or more this year. How do you arrive at this rate, he said. The GDP deflators adopted are not convincing, he said. Mr Chidambaram said if people anywhere in the country are asked, they do not feel any comfort, and none gets the feeling people are happy.

He said the Budget had given reliefs to just two to three crore people. There are 140 crore people in the country and 50 per cent of the population has only three per cent national wealth and just 13 per cent of the national income; their monthly consumption has gone down.

Most of them are daily labour, 30 crore really, while others are in irregular jobs, he said. Only 17 to 25 per cent have regular jobs in the country. What is the relief given to them, he said. In the international hunger index, India is at the 111 th place. Free foodgrains to 81 crore is admission “we are very low in the hunger index. People cannot afford food,” he said.

Federalism is in poor state, funds have been withheld from Kerala and West Bengal for one reason or the other, all India Service officers defy orders of elected government in Delhi, borrowing limits of non-BJP States slashed. How were Bihar and Andhra Pradesh treated before April this year, he said.

“No grudge you are giving relief to some States; but what about other States, we are a federal country, this is the death-knell of federalism, if you pick and choose among States, you are the Union government of India, government of all States,” Mr Chidambaram said.

The senior Congress leader said he had five demands: Rs 400 minimum wage per day for every job; legally guaranteed MSP, write-off of unpaid interest or balance of educational loans given up to March, 2024, abolition of the Agniveer scheme, and that NEET be scrapped.

Mr Dayanidhi Maran (DMK) said in the Lok Sabha Tamil Nadu was denied funds for flood relief when it faced the worst floods in 150 years. While Tamil Nadu got Rs 286 crore, Bihar got Rs 11,000 crore, Gujarat Rs 1000 crore. The Centre is giving Rs 26,000 crore to Bihar for repairs of its collapsed bridges. He said high Capex was not visible on the ground and it would only cut expenditure on welfare.

Mr Abhishek Banerjee (Trinamool Congress) said the Budget is anti-Bengal and anti-poor. He said there was weaponisation of Central investigating agencies for political witchhunts. He said the NDA government was a creaky, vulnerable and shaky coalition which had not learnt lessons from its many defeats including in Ayodhya.