Union budget, an artful trickery: HP CM

HP Chief Minister, Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu said that the Union Budget 2023-24 presented by the Union Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman in Parliament today was disappointing and contrary to the expectation of the common masses. He proclaimed that the budget was a mere artful trickery to achieve the desired ends.  There is nothing in this budget for any section of the society viz:  middle class, poor, youth and farmers. He said that nothing has been said in the budget to control rising inflation and unemployment and this budget was completely disappointing and anti-commoner.

Chief Minster said that the people were still waiting for the ‘Achhe Din’ as lured by the BJP in 2014. The Union Government has lost its only opportunity to fulfill their announcements as per the promises before the Lok Sabha elections, to be held in 2024. The budget lacks the vision on employment sector and no reasonable thinking has been made in this direction. There is no mention of urban employment and for farmers expect, raising their loan limit, which will push them more into debt burden.  There was no announcement for subsidies on the farming tools or fertilizers, stated the Chief Minister. Apart from this there was no addition on MNREGA allocation thereby completely ignoring the rural employment avenues.

Nothing has been projected for the State in the Union Budget, 2023-24, there is no allocation for expansion of the rail infrastructure and for the National Highways. Even the changes in the income tax slabs were not upto the expectation of the people, as it has not given any relief to the middle class, stated the Chief Minister. The middle class is totally disheartened and displeased, as they expected more relief in tax slabs.  This was a Budget for making rich gain more and poor the poorest, adding that it was a pro-rich budget. Centre Government should stop this soap opera being repeated since 2014.

He said that no special grant has been announced for the states under debt burden. Not only Himachal, there were many other States sailing in same boat and reeling under debt. We have inherited the debt burden of around Rs 75000 crore from the previous government besides there was a liability of paying arrears to employees and pensioners amounting to nearly than 11000 crore. He said that there was no mention about reimbursement of GST since June 2022 in the Budget to the small hill States.

Meanwhile amongst others the CITU termed the union budget presented by the Central Government  pro-capitalist and anti-labour, It is is just jugglery of figures and for the general public it is like putting cumin in the camel’s mouth.  CITU State President Vijender Mehra and General Secretary Prem Gautam have said that this budget is going to accelerate the pace of privatization without breaking away from neoliberal policies and government so called reform.  This will only benefit the capitalists and in view of the inflation, the condition of the laborers would worsen further.  In this budget, the door has been opened for open sale of all public sector undertakings including banks, insurance, telecom, rail, airport, energy, traffic, transport.  The budget has only done the work of hollowing out the service sector.  There is nothing special in the interest of laborers and employees in this budget.  The budget has ignored the laborers’ demand for minimum wage of Rs.26,000 as recommended by the Indian Labor Conference and the honorable Supreme Court.  There is nothing in the budget done by all the planning workers including Anganwadi, Asha, Mid Day Meal, NHM.  Industrial laborers have also got disappointed with this budget as MNREGA and Agriculture  out lay downsized and construction workers have not got anything in the budget.  There is no provision in the budget for permanent, outsourced, contract and all other types of laborers in both organized and unorganized sector.  The budget has also failed to fulfill the dreams of farm labourers.