PRESS
STATEMENT – BUDGET 2018 - CITU
Press Release
1st February
2018
THE UNION BUDGET
2018-19: ANTI-PEOPLE ANTI-WORKER AND DECEPTIVE
The Union Budget 2018-19,
presented by the Finance Minister of the Narendra Modi Govt today on a
preliminary scrutiny, turns out to be deceptive one, meticulously articulated
to misguide and confuse the people. The Budget is anti-workers, anti-people and
also militates against the national interest. CITU condemns such an anti-people
exercise.
The Budget remained liberal
about extending concession to business houses. On the plea of supporting Micro,
Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (MSMEs) the Budget extended the reduced
corporate tax rate of 25% to companies having Rs 250 crore annual turnover. Is
the turnover the right measure of identifying an MSME or the ‘capital deployed’
should categorise the MSME more honestly ? Will it really benefit the
genuine MSMEs or allow the big players to corner the benefit ? However
through such deceptive manner the burden on corporate houses has been reduced
further by Rs 7000 crore while giving no relief to suffering millions reeling
under post GST indirect tax burden. This along with other pro-corporate policy
drives continued to remain the pattern of budget exercise of the Modi
Govt in successive years of its governance pushing the entire country in the midst
of extreme and obscene income inequality of one percent people cornering 73% of
the national wealth. And yet the Govt will continue to call itself pro-poor.
Budget speech made no
mistake in mentioning its resolve to extend the atrocious “fixed term employment”
system to all the sectors consistent with its brazenly anti-worker
pro-corporate drive for labour-law changes designed to impose slavery on the
workers. While speaking lavishly about improving health, education and
social welfare services toward universalisation, it remained totally negative
in considering the long standing demands of about a crore workers working
in its flagship scheme of NHM, Mid-day-Meal(MDM) and ICDS (Anganwadi) and other
related central govt schemes of extending them at least the right to statutory
minimum wages and attendant social security benefits. In fact the allocation
under National Health Mission (NHM) has been reduced and on ICDS and MDM there
are marginal increase that too for other expenditures. Such an attitude is utterly
condemnable.
On employment generation
also, the claim made in the budget speech is also not true. In fact, even as
per official estimate, the net employment generation has turned negative in
absolute term if job-losses owing to closure of factories/establishments during
the period is taken into account. The claim of creation of 70 lakh jobs
in the formal sector said to be based on the increase in number of EPFO
data as touted by a so called “independent study” upheld by the Finance
Minister is another hoax to confuse and misguide the people and a cruel joke on
the several lakhs of unemployed. Rather every step of this Modi Govt is
degenerating the employment situation in the country; and all concessions
being given to business houses by the Govt including bearing the burden of
employers contribution in EPF, allowing liberal income tax rebate to employers
on account of wages paid to the newly employed workers etc is actually an
arrangement of organized pilferage from the national exchequer by the employers’ class in complicity with the
custodians of the said exchequer, without creating any employment whatsoever.
Added to this has been the recent move of abolishing all posts in central govt
establishment deliberately kept vacant for last five years, killing lakhs of
employment positions.
The Budget speech has gone
extremely lavish in pronouncing commitments for development of agriculture and
rural development along with launching so many schemes, whereas budgetary
allocation for 2018-19 both on account of Agriculture and Allied Services and
Rural Development marked a marginal increase of Rs 9793 crore in nominal term
meaning actually a decline both in real terms and also as a percentage of GDP
and total budgetary allocations. The Budget gave a shockingly surprising news
that the Govt has already implemented the Minimum Support Price (MSP) at the
rate of one and half times of production cost for majority of the Rabi Crops
and now the Govt is committed to extend the same to Kharif crops in the
current year also which is totally untrue. Even Govt’s deposition before the
Apex Court in this matter is reportedly negative.
Similarly, the budgetary
statement about putting in place under its flagship programme of National
Health protection Scheme to provide for secondary and tertiary care
hospitalization at the rate of Rs 5 lakh per family per year to 10 crore poor
and vulnerable families, if weighed in terms of actual budgetary allocations,
turns out be another hoax. The budgetary allocation on this account is merely
Rs 1600 core which can cover hardly 10 lakh families (and not 10 crore). And
such discrepancy exposes the dubious intent. Overall, behind the shrill
fraudulent noise of all round development, the budget continued to remain a
contractionary budget and focus of almost all govt expenditures are designed to
benefit only the rich and propertied business class and the common people and
the workers in particular are being subjected to deeper exploitation and
repression.
Budget speech lavishly spoke
about developing self reliance in defence production and what is being actually
done is setting the process of destruction of the existing indigenous
manufacturing capabilities in the Ordnance factories, the defence
PSUs and country’s shipyards by way of mass scale outsourcing in favour of
private sector, both foreign and domestic turning around half of the
Ordnance Factories redundant and starving the Defence PSUs and Shipyards of
work-orders. On the same way, under the camouflage of expanding Railway
network, the project of total privatization of Railways is being pursued in
full swing. Are these in any manner serving national interests or
sabotaging the same in favour of foreign players ?
The Govt has been moving
fast in selling out the national assets through wholesale privatization. In the
current year the target for disinvestment /privatization is kept at Rs 80000 crore
to keep on the pace of its ‘destroy India’ programme under the camouflage
of “Make in India”.
CITU denounced the budget
2018-19 of the Modi Govt and calls upon the working class to unitedly
protest and fight against the fraud and exploitation they are being
subjected to simultaneously.
Issued by
(Tapan
Sen )
General Secretary
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