Leading the Opposition's attack against the interim budget 2019-20, Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Friday blamed Narendra Modi government for destroying the lives of the farmers by providing a direct minimum income for farmers stating that giving them Rs 17 a day is an insult.
Earlier, in his interim budget presentation, Finance Minister Piyush Goyal announced a new scheme "Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN)" to extend direct income support at the rate of Rs 6,000 per year to farmer families, with cultivable land up to two hectares.
Meanwhile, Chief Minister of Punjab, Captain Amarinder Singh called it an election-centric budget aimed at misleading people with false promises, which were not backed by numbers.
"They had promised Rs 15 lakhs in accounts of all but have ended up giving only Rs 6000 a year to farmers up to two hectares of land, and that too at the end of their tenure, clearly showing their lack of intent to do anything for the farmers' welfare," the Chief Minister said.
The Chief Minister termed the Rs 6000 a year announced for marginal farmers as mere peanuts. "With just Rs 500 a month for the distressed farmers, the Modi government had made it obvious that they did not recognise the gravity of the problem," said Captain Amarinder, dubbing the exercise as a mockery of the interests of the farming community.
Ostensibly populist, the budget is a typical budget of a government on its last legs, with nothing except fake promises for the people of India, said Captain Amarinder, who rejected the budget as all fluff and no action.
"They had promised Rs 15 lakhs in accounts of all but have ended up giving only Rs 6000 a year to farmers up to two hectares of land, and that too at the end of their tenure, clearly showing their lack of intent to do anything for the farmers' welfare," the Chief Minister said.
Under the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) scheme, Rs 2,000 each will be transferred to bank accounts of around 12 crore small and marginal farmer families, in three equal instalments. This programme would be made effective from December 1, 2018 and the first instalment for the period up to March 31, 2019 would be paid during this year itself.
Amarinder Singh flayed the budget as a mismatch one, noting that the concessions given to the tune of Rs 1 lakh crore should actually mean an incremental deficit of 0.5 per cent but the government had shown additional deficit of only 0.1 per cent. This means at least Rs 80,000 crore worth of taxes will be imposed in the full budget, resulting in more burden on the common man in the coming days, he added.
"Even the MSP of 50 per cent above the production cost was nothing but eyewash as the government was not buying all the items on the list," he said, pointing out that while maize had an MSP it was not being bought by the government, forcing the farmers to sell it at an abominably low cost.
The entire budget, said Captain Amarinder, was in "future tense", as it talked about a USD 5 trillion economy in five years and a USD 10 trillion economy in the next eight years. Nowhere did it reflect the achievements of the BJP-led NDA government of the past five years, he said.
Singh said: "The Government had also breached healthy norms of constitutional propriety by announcing concessions for the future with a clear eye on elections, even while it was expected to propose a mere vote on account.
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