Budget 2022: Second session resumes today; Sitharaman to present J-K budget 

The second part of the Parliament's Budget session for the financial year 2022-2022 will resume on Monday. While the opposition is all set to corner the government on a range of issues like evacuation of stranded Indians in Ukraine, labour matters, slashing of interest on employees’ provident fund, MSP for farmers and unemployment, one of the government's top focuses is to get approval for the budgetary proposals and presentation of the budget for Jammu and Kashmir union territory.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is all set to present the budget for the union territory in Lok Sabha today, which may be taken up for discussion in the post-lunch sitting of the House.  Besides this, the Centre has also listed the Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order (Amendment) Bill for consideration and passing in the lower house.

Meanwhile, Congress president Sonia Gandhi chaired a meeting of the party’s Parliament Strategy Group at her residence in Delhi. Here, the party decided to work in tandem with like-minded political parties during the budget session.

Leader of Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge was quoted as saying by news agency PTI, “We will work in coordination with other like-minded parties to raise issues of public importance during the session.” Kharge noted that the issues to be raised during this session are evacuation of stranded Indians in Ukraine, labour matters, slashing of interest on employees’ provident fund, MSP for farmers as promised by the government and unemployment.

The Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) decided to decrease the rate of interest on employees’ provident fund from 8.5 per cent to 8.1 per cent. Opposition leaders are also likely to demand a response from the government over the evacuation of Indian nationals stuck in Ukraine.

Opposition has criticised the government for the ‘delay’ in rescuing the students caught in the war zone and criticised the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) for issuing ‘vague’ advisories.

The second budget session of the Parliament convenes days after the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) registered wins in the assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur while the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) came to power in Punjab.

The first part of the Budget session had begun on January 29 with President Ram Nath Kovind’s address to a joint sitting of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha in the Central Hall of Parliament, followed by the presentation of the Economic Survey. Sitharaman presented the Budget 2022-23 on February 1, followed by the discussions on the Motion of Thanks to the President’s Address and the Union Budget.

(With agency inputs)