West Bengal Finance Minister Amit Mitra on Monday termed the Union Budget 2021 presented by his Central counterpart Minister Nirmala Sithraman as ‘visionless’ and said there is nothing in it for the middle class as well as those engaged in informal and unorganised sectors.
Addressing a virtual press conference, Mitra said, “Fundamentally, this is a budget that is not only visionless but also a confused one. The only clarity in the budget lies in how to sell off government resources and as a result, statistics are showing inequality in India has rapidly increased.”
“The rich during COVID-19 pandemic became richer, middle class neglected as they don’t appear in the budget and poor in terrible shape. Why? Because there is no mention of informal and unorganised sectors in the budget. Ninety-three percent of the employment which consist of 40 percent of the GDP (revolving around this sector) and there is simply no mention about these sectors. There is nothing innovative about small and medium enterprises.”
Regarding disinvestment, Mitra said the term presently being used for the same is privatisation. “And, what are you privatising? I would like to take a quick look at the privatisation idea. Well Railways which is under some kind of privatisation model, airports openly privatised (including six of them recently). The budget says seven ports would be undertaken through public-private-partnership (PPP) mode. I have a suspicion that it will soon be sold. Here I am talking about major ports and not the minor ones. And finally what you have done for farmers? Nothing.”
In the Budget, Sitharaman announced seven port projects worth more than Rs 2,000 crore investment. These projects would be undertaken through the PPP model, she said. India has 12 major ports under the control of the central government, namely Deendayal Port Trust, Mumbai Port Trust, Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust, Mormugao Port Trust, and the ones in Paradip, Kolkata, New Mangalore, Cochin, Chennai, VO Chidambaranar and Visakhapatnam.
Speaking about allocation of Rs 25,000 crore for 675-km of highway work, including re-development of Kolkata-Siliguri highway in the poll-bound state, Mitra said, “As there is lot of big talk about infrastructure in the budget, I would like to tell them please come and learn from West Bengal. Under Mamata Banerjee’s leadership, 88,841km of rural roads have been constructed. In terms of highways and state roads, 5,111km stretch has been constructed and the central government has given the highest award to the West Bengal government for it.”
“Another 1,165km roads are being built at the moment and that is the biggest part of infrastructure in any development model. And what have you (referring to Sitharaman) done? You came and said you will build a 675-km highway in West Bengal. It is not even 1,000km. Why have you woken up today? Why didn’t you do this before? Answer is simple. Three states have been picked — Tamil Nadu Assam and West Bengal. Why? What is common between the three? The common thing is election that’s going to be held in these state. Well, I can understand, politics requires responding to political situations but this budget is unbelievable. Learn from us on infrastructural development.”
Hitting out at the Centre over release of funds for states, Mitra said, “We have spent Rs 4,000 crore during the COVID-19 pandemic, but the Centre has released only Rs 279 crores. It is shameful.”
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