Nothing new for common man in the Budget, says Opposition

New Delhi, Feb 1 (IANS) Opposition parties on Tuesday said that there was nothing for the common man in the Budget 2022-23 and it only served the interests of the corporate sector.

Reacting to the Budget presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge said that this budget was not for the poor but only for the rich people.

"You are reducing the corporate taxes, doing disinvestments, you are not filling up the vacancies and you are talking about new jobs. The government has promised to build four crore houses but they built only two crore and now they again said that 80 lakh new houses will be built," the Congress leader said.

On unemployment, he said: "The government has failed to fill the existing vacancies... how can I believe that they will be providing new jobs to people. A total of 32 lakh vacancies are there in both state and Central government, they should first fill these vacancies and then talk about the new jobs."

Shiv Sena Rajya Sabha member Priyanka Chaturvedi said that her initial impression was that this Budget would be "a very interesting and transformational one, but when it was elaborated, we realised that there was nothing for the common people".

"There is nothing to reduce the burden of expenses of the 'aam aadmi' and also nothing to increase their income. This was unfortunate that the government of India has missed the opportunity".

Rejecting the government's claim that this was a futuristic Budget, she said how could this be futuristic "when you are not giving anything to the hands of the common people".

"The government is not addressing the biggest challenge of unemployment that the country has been facing and they continue to talk about a futuristic budget... your data do not match up to the reality," she added.

Congress MP Shaktisinh Gohil said that this Budget lacks foresightedness and direction. "The people of the country were expecting some relaxation and the Economic Survey presented yesterday, indicated that the income of the majority of the population was shrinking because of many factors including Covid pandemic... the citizens of the country were waiting that the government will do something for them but there was nothing for them in the Union Budget."

This government has extracted over Rs 1,40,000 crore from GST but when people wanted some relaxations from the government, they were thoroughly disappointed, Gohil added.

RJD Rajya Sabha member Manoj Kumar Jha, asked for his reaction on the Union Budget, said that he looked for a reaction but he did not find it.

"This is one of the most tasteless Budgets I have seen, this is one of the Budgets where I cannot see a green signal in any direction. The idea of the Budget should have been to give relief to the common people but did you get anything fundamentally to get relief to neither the poor nor to the middle class," he said.

"My biggest concern, a scary concern, is the issue of unemployment. The government has no plans to tackle the issue of unemployment, the youths of the country are boiling, you have seen in many places recently and when it will erupt, this would be difficult for them to tackle the issue," he added.

On the announcement of 16 lakh jobs, Jha said that he was afraid that it might take the same fate as two crore jobs every year promised early.

DMK MP T. Siva said that the Budget was totally disappointing and totally in favour of the private sector. "They (the government) are giving more incentives to them and diluting the public sector."