HT Correspondent
MARGHERITA, Feb 6: Strongly criticizing the Union Budget 2023-2024, AITUC (All India Trade Union Congress), the secretary of Assam State Committee — Anjan Choudhary has said that it has “failed to take note of rising unemployment which was promised by Narendra Modi in 2014 of two crore jobs per year but now there is a backlog \of around twenty crore jobs.
“In the backdrop of rising inequality, inflation and emerging multi-dimensional rural crisis, this Budget neglects the ground realities of the economy. It is an attempt to strengthen the perception that everything is okay with the economy.”
Ranjan Choudhary added, “The allocations provided for education, health, MNREGA, food security and other social sectors are inadequate; and, it will be a big blow to the masses pushing them towards greater vulnerability and exposing them to hunger and devastation.
“The allocation on agriculture has been reduced by Rs 8,500 crore when farmers are suffering from high input costs. No attempt is being made in the budget to help them, The capital subsidy on MSMEs is not clear leading to false claims where the food subsidy is reduced from Rs 2.8 lakh crore to Rs 1.97 lakh crore.
“The ICDS allocation is kept the same as last year’s; and, the allocation for NREGA was Rs 89,000 crore in the year 2021 2022. But now in this budget, it has been reduced to Rs 60,000 crore. Thus, all the social sector allocations are reduced, added Ranjan Choudhary.
The Budget is “an anti-people, anti- development and unrealistic one to meet the present needs. Moreover, under the above circumstances, it’s quite impossible to become ‘Biswaguru; opined Choudhary.
