NATIONAL CO-ORDINATION COMMITTEE
OF PENSIONERS ASSOCIATIONS..
(Registered undder the T.U. Act.No. RTU01/2021.Dated.7.01.2021
PAN NO AAEAN8586F
Website: nccpahq.blogspot.in.E mail:
nccpahq@gmail.com.
13.c Feroze Shah Road, New Delhi. 110 001
PRESIDENT: COM.SHIV GOPAL MISHRA.(97176 47594)
SECRETARY
GENERAL: COM.K.K.N.KUTTY.
(98110 48303)
Dated: 2ND February, 2022.
Dear Comrade,
The
Union Budget 2022
On 1st February, 2022, (the customary date fixed for Union
Budget) Ms. Nirmala Sitaraman, Finance Minister, Government of India, presented
the budget for the financial year 2022-23 to the Lok Sabha at 11.00 AM. The
Budget is an instrument from which the common people expect the Government of
India to extend its helping hand to remove their agony. They normally glue to the TV sets or listen
to the Radio broadcast to know whether the empathy has been translated into
tangible terms. The people had expected
a lot from this budget as they thought that the Government was aware of the
deprivation suffered by the common multitude due to the still-not-abated
pandemic, covid 19. The continuing
pandemic situation for the last two years had affected severely the life and
means of livelihood of the people at large.
It was during the period of pandemic, the Indian people realised the
worth of public health system and how disastrous had been its concerted
destruction over the years by the Government.
Most of the time in the year 2021, the country had to face several lock
downs as the only way to arrest the severity of the pandemic. The sudden halt of all economic activities
had its terrible toll. Many families of
the people at the lower strata of the society had been driven to the shores of
penury and poverty during the period. It
is, therefore, necessary that the budget proposals are seen through their eyes.
It is difficult to discern any positive features in the budget, viewed
from the common man’s perspective. With
the rising tax revenue, mostly from indirect taxes, like GST, Customs and
excise duties, nay even from the corporate and income tax, the Government could
have announced certain welfare measures benefiting the poor and suffering
people. In fact the allocation on
health, education, employment generation schemes, food and fertilizer
subsidies, agriculture (for MSP, Crop insurance,) child welfare etc. has either
remained static or got reduced. A major
share of the excise duty has come from the systematic and continuous increase in
the petroleum products. The cost of LPG gas cylinder had almost been doubled by
this Government between 2014 and 2021.
The phenomenal increase in the cooking gas alone brought distress to a
large majority of the people in the lower and middle segments of the
society. The announcements like developing
25000 KMs National highways and 2200 KM new Railway tracks, 400 super-fast
trains and above all the introduction of an official digital currency were in
fact mocking at the poor people. The
total expenditure of the Government estimated in the Budget for the year
2022-23, despite a nominal increase is actually down from. 17.1% of GDP in
2020-21 to 15.3.%
Without raising resources no government would be able to either increase
the long term capital expenditure to create infrastructure asset base nor look
after its people at lower strata. In the
difficult situation the people are placed, due to the un-abaiting covid and
periodical lock outs, the Government ought to have raised resources from those
who has the ability to pay. Such a
proposal must have been a must in the budget.
The Oxfam report, India supplement, which has just been released tells
us the sordid story of the vast majority of the Indian people. Amongst the poverty stricken Nations, India
has further fallen from 94 to 104. It
also tells that the top 10 rich persons
in the country had been able to double their wealth during the covid
period. Most of the Indian corporate
houses have increased their profit ratio. Why then the Government could not
have raised the corporate tax rates or
the rate of income tax at the
super profit level, obviously elicits only one answer. In fact, the Government had reduced the rate
of corporation tax from 33% to 22% as
part of the covid specific bail-out package.
The least the Finance Minister could have done was to restore the old
rates.
Pensioner community is no different from the common people. The senior citizens suffered immeasurably
during this period. Almost every one of
them was afflicted with the covid virus.
Being old they were more prone to the pandemic. Some of them despite being in self- proclaimed
house arrest, still suffered from the virus infection. The private hospitals in the country charged
exorbitantly for the treatment. Having
almost dismantled the public health care system, they had no alternative but to
be at the mercy of the private hospitals.
Pensioners and the senior citizens still suffer the post-covid health
complications. No concession has been
granted to the old people in the Budget, whereas the Govt. has unashamedly
taken crores of rupees from the pensioners by denying the Dearness relief due
to them for 18 months. Rather some of the facilities like
air and train travel concessions were withdrawn . Many expected that the Government would take
note of the huge hospitalisation expenditure incurred by the pensioners and old
people and would increase the ceiling limit of medical expenses in the
Budget.
Almost all of the Pensioners and retired personnel had invested their
retirement benefits on fixed term deposits in the Nationalised Banks. Crores of rupees had been collected by the
Banks from the pensioners and the fund has obviously been used to advance to
rich and corporate entities. A good
chunk of such loans has now become non- performing assets and now a new Bad
Bank to deal with such assets has been set up. From 2014 onwards, this
government had been systematically reducing the interest rates on term deposits
to facilitate the business enterprises.
The fall out has been terrible loss to the pensioner community. Not only the real value of their income has
been eroded but even in quantum terms, the loss had been
unbearable. According to an estimate a
person who had invested in Fixed Deposits, say 20 lakhs in 2014 would suffer a
loss of Rs. 87,120 in the year 2021-22 due to interest rate reduction. That is precisely Rs. 7260 per month. While the income had a drastic reduction, the
expenditure due to inflation and effected price rise on petroleum products has
almost doubled.
The 2022-23 Budget has, despite having increased revenue collection,
sought to reduce its outflow on welfare measures ,exposing
clearly where the empathy of the rulers are. It refused to
tax the rich who has increased their profit during the covid period. It continues to proclaim to raise resources
by selling away the Public Sector Units and lease out the infra structural
assets for pittance to private enterprises.
Privatisation and crony capitalism had been the hall mark of the policy
of this government. How far they can go
could be evidenced rom the fact that the company to whom the contract for the
production of the Vande Bharat coaches has been given, is permitted to
manufacture it inside the ICF/RCF coach factories owned by the Government.
The Budget is, therefore, not only disappointing but in a way reflects
the insensitive mind-set of those in the governance of the country towards the
suffering people. There must be and
will be strong reaction from the people at large to this anti people budget.
With greetings,
Yours fraternally,
KKN. Kutty.
Secretary General.
No comments:
Post a Comment