(Pervez Bari): The Social Democratic Party of India, (SDPI), has described the Union budget as disappointing as it is unimaginative, dull and boring. The budget is anti-farmer, anti-worker and anti-poor. It is more of a lawyer’s budget than the finance minister’s budget. The budget will only benefit industrialists and not common man, the party said.
SDPI national president E. Abubacker in Press statement said there is nothing new in this budget and neither anything for farmers, employees and the middle class. The Finance Minister P. Chidambaram has allocated additionally Rs.10000 crore for food security and Rs.3000 crore additional increase in health. It means that benefits of health and food are not going to reach the poor. And as such the slogan of Health for all and Education for all as said by the FM is just rhetoric.
Abubacker said huge investment in health and education is required as without health and education you cannot have dignity. The budget is the vision document and not merely the balancing of accounting figures. India cannot grow with a myopic vision.
He said that economy can only get the boost if there is an involvement of all the citizens and for which you require Gandhian vision. India is still agri-based economy and there is no big plan to boost agriculture. India needs big time investment in agriculture sector also, he added.
Abubacker lamented that Chidambaram has allocated Rs.3,511 crore to the Minorities Affairs ministry which is just an increase of 12 percent over the BE (budget estimate) and 60 percent over the RE (revised estimates) of 2012-13. He also proposed to allocate Rs.160 crore to the Maulana Azad Education Foundation, from the current corpus of Rs.750 crore, saying the objective is to raise it to Rs.1,500 crore during the 12th Plan period. For additional medical facilities for the foundation, he allocated Rs.100 crore. He should have done justice to bring Indian Muslims at par to go forward with other communities; for making the national agenda of Inclusive growth a success. It is clear that the Congress-led UPA Government is not sincere for eradication of poverty among Indian Muslims; otherwise there would have been introduction of any scheme to help Indian Muslims come out of their vicious circle of illiteracy and poverty, Abubacker stated.
The SDPI chief was critical of the Finance Minister’s announcement of an all-women bank by this year with the government announcing an initial capital of Rs.1,000 crore for the purpose. He said today women require more all-women police stations than an all women bank. it is a joke because if FM were serious about the issue of women then he could have come up with the financial schemes applicable in all the banks rather than just creating one all-women public sector bank. (pervezbari@eth.net)