The Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) national president A A Rahim and General Secretary Himaghnaraj Bhattacharya issued a statement calling out the budget after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the Union Budget in Lok Sabha.
They claim that although the budget may appear to be a populist one, a detailed examination of FM's speech reveals that the country's current major problems like unemployment, price increases, and the agriculture crisis are given relatively little attention.
The statement further added that even though the FM mentioned that employment opportunities will be increased through investing more money in fields like MSMEs, such claims are only "empty statements when looking at the record of unfulfilled promises which have been made by the Modi government in the past."
The DYFI leaders added that more focus and security must have been given to the informal sector as a sizable portion of the workforce is employed in this sector of the economy. On the other hand, they added that 'privatization of public assets is no more a secret agenda of the government, but a much-celebrated policy. "Through the 'new Public Sector Enterprise policy', the strategic transfer of ownership of Air India has been completed", said Nirmala Sitharaman in her budget speech. Whom is this strategy going to benefit is something everyone must be concerned about.'
The 33 per cent reduction in the allocation for MGNREGS to Rs.60,000 crores was another concern that they raised. Adding that the meagre 3 per cent increase in the outlay for the housing scheme PMAY – Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana was not enough to keep up with inflation. Apart from that the government has decreased the budget expenditure as a proportion of GDP from 15.33 per cent to 14.92 per cent.
The budgetary allocation on education continues to be lower than what is expected, the duo said, adding that schemes have been made to impart digital and online learning but a counter to the digital divide crisis has not been mentioned.
"The Finance Minister has made various changes to the direct taxation structure which further reduces the government’s revenue from direct taxes. The FM says revenue of Rs.38,000-37,000 crore in direct taxes and Rs.1,000 crore in indirect taxes will be forgone. The reduction in revenue from indirect taxes is much less than from direct taxes. This means the structure of revenue from taxes swings further in the direction of indirect taxes."
"Direct taxes come from either corporations, businesses and other institutions or individuals earning income above the taxable limit. Indirect tax is falling upon the entire population including the poorest sections. Hence, having a greater proportion of indirect taxes is not favourable."
The party claims that the budget caters to the rich of the nation, quoting an Oxfam report which says that a little less than "two-thirds (64.3%) of the total GST is coming from the bottom 50% of the population, one-third from the middle 40% and only 3-4% per cent from the richest 10% of the country."
They charged that although in the budget speech, FM was talking about 'Amrit Kaal' for the country, they raised the question: 'who is this going to be beneficial for?'
'It is clear that this is going to be 'Amrit Kaal' for the billionaires and millionaires of the country who have been one of the groups who have benefitted the most from the rule of Narendra Modi Government.' They concluded by appealing to the youth to understand the gimmicks played by the government through this budget and continue to "question their policies which make the poor of the country more and more poorer."