Press Release -
Interim
Budget 2019 – Fraudulent Exercise Before Elections
The Interim Budget 2019, the last before
the term of this BJP government ends, is a fraudulent attempt to cheat the people
in a desperate bid to attract votes when defeat in the ensuing
Parliament elections is staring at its face.
The interim budget vainly tries to give
the misleading impression of providing so called ‘sops’ to
different sections of people. In fact, it does not waver a bit from the
pro-corporate neoliberal agenda which has caused so much distress to the
workers, peasants and the poor who have come out in their lakhs protesting
these policies in the last few months compelling the government to talk about
their issues. The acting finance minister laments that he could not reach the
fiscal deficit target because of the money promised to the peasants. During the
entire period of its five year tenure, the BJP government led by Modi feigned
sleep, forgot the workers and peasants who create wealth for the country and
was busy aggressively implementing the so called ‘reforms’ to serve their
corporate master, domestic and foreign and fill their kitty looting the people
and national resources.
The budget has nothing to improve the
sagging economy through public investment, employment generation and improving
the purchasing power of the people. Rather the arrogant announcement of
continuing with the disinvestment and privatisation of PSUs and other “reforms”
in the pipeline reflects the real intention to pave the way for destruction of
self reliance and national economy as a whole.
It does not address the alarming levels
of unemployment, which have reached forty five year high and which the BJP
government has sought to suppress by not releasing the data and manufacturing
data in its favour. There is no concrete proposal except the rhetoric of
‘job seekers becoming job providers’, which those in government have been
repeating ad nauseum without any visible action at the ground. The lack of any
concrete plan becomes clear with the acting finance minister declaring the
‘employment generation is not confined merely to government services or
factories’. Probably he wants to reiterate the advice of his colleagues in BJP
to the youth to sell pakodas, set up pan shops or rear cows.
The interim budget has nothing to
improve the wages of workers and incomes of peasants. It ignores the demand for
loan waiver to the peasants. It does not ensure appropriate price for the farmers’
produce, nor the ensured procurement mechanism for all the crops. It does
not even mention minimum wage of Rs 18000 for workers. The allocation for
MGNREGA has in fact been reduced compared to last year, even when the number of
days of work has drastically come down and workers continue to be unpaid for
several months. The unpaid wages for the work done under MNREGA crossed Rs 5150
crore in 2017-18 itself as per official data.
The pension of Rs 3000 for unorganized
workers is another exercise in deceit without there being any scheme. The
allocation of a meagre Rs 500 crores itself is an indication of the lack of
seriousness and honesty in covering the more than 40 crore unorganized workers
in the country. And they will receive this pension only by contributing
continuously up to the age of 60, which most of them cannot do. The real
fraudulent intention behind announcement of this programme becomes clear when
the cow-protection receives a bigger allocation of Rs 750 crore.
Increase in the exemption limit of
earnings for income-tax payment had been long overdue and nothing to boast
about.
Similarly the promise of Rs 6000 per
year to the peasants having less than 2 hectares of land is a cruel joke on the
peasants. Probably the minister wants the peasants who provide food for the
country to satisfy their hungry stomachs with peanuts that the princely
amount of Rs 15 a day can buy. There is no intention to address the agrarian
crisis in a meaningful way.
As one of their colleagues in the union
cabinet revealed recently, this time too, the BJP, leading the government
obviously feels they have nothing to lose as they are not going to come to
power anyway. People cannot be perpetually cheated by such dubious exercises.
Issued by:
Hemalata
President
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