[Marxistindia] Union Budget: Payback Gift to Corporates

[news from the cpi(m)]

05 July 2019
Press Statement
 
The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has issued the
following statement:
 
Union Budget: Payback Gift to Corporates
 
The first budget of the second Modi Government presented by Nirmala
Sitharaman was a payback gift after the elections to corporate India and
foreign financial interests. The Budget and the speech were full of several
promises and commitments that would help big corporate capital and the
wealthy to strengthen their grip on the Indian economy and foster greater
integration of the Indian economy with international financial markets.
Nothing, however, was there for India's working people - kisans and workers
- who would be left to fend for themselves in a world of shrinking
opportunities for employment and livelihood. 
 
The finance minister's speech listed a long menu of pro-corporate 'reforms'
- opening up the Indian economy even more to foreign portfolio and direct
investment (including the pension sector), creating a 'financeable' model
for highways, promoting PPP in several areas including railways and metro
development, etc. and even commercialization and financialization of social
welfare through a 'Social Stock Exchange'. 
 
There were no references, however, to the issues of remunerative prices and
debt relief that India's farmers are in desperate need of. On labour, the
creation of a more anti-labour labour code was also presented as a 'reform'.

 
While all of these were talked about, the FM's speech was generally short of
any real details regarding the revenue measures and expenditure commitments
of the Union Government for 2019-20 and was completely silent on the
problems of economic slowdown, agrarian distress, industrial stagnation and
joblessness that everyone knows currently afflict the Indian economy.
 
As regards the actual Budget, the Finance Minister chose to not disclose the
actual figures for revenues and expenditures for 2018-19 even though they
are available by now. Instead the revised estimates presented in the Interim
Budget on 1 February were retained in the final Budget - obviously in order
to conceal the verifiable fact that the actuals of both revenues and
expenditures in the previous year were significantly lower than in the
Budget Estimates and even the Revised Estimates of the Interim Budget. This
manipulation of the Budget accounts only serves to establish that the
expenditure commitments for 2019-20 lack credibility as they will be cut if
needed to meet fiscal deficit targets.
 
The estimates of gross revenues from Central taxes for 2019-20 have been
reduced relative to the Interim Budget by almost Rs. 91,000 crores, and 40
per cent of this loss will have to be borne by State Governments. The
reduction in estimated revenue collections is attributable to reduced
projections for GST (by nearly Rs. 98000 crores) and Income Tax (Rs. 51,000
crores) - an indirect admission of the failure of the so-called reform
measures of the Government that it had claimed would improve tax compliance.

 
What is shocking is that instead of addressing the fundamental problems in
the taxation system and raising more resources from direct taxes except
through extremely piecemeal measures - the Finance Minister has chosen to
give several tax concessions to the corporate sector even while burdening
the common people with additional excise duties on petrol and diesel to the
tune of Rs. 2 per litre. Hitting at the public sector is the Government's
chosen additional route for raising resources. On the one hand disinvestment
of public sector enterprises to the tune of Rs. 1.05 lakh crores is being
planned. Further, PSEs will be bled by squeezing more of their profits out
of them for the Government - and this amount has been raised from Rs. 1.36
lakh crores in the Interim Budget to 1.64 lakh crores in the final one. Even
after all of this, the projected figures will keep the expenditure to GDP
ratio the same! 
 
The budget shows very little increase in spending for people. Total
subsidies as per cent of total expenditure have remained almost unchanged at
about 12 per cent. The first Woman Finance Minister of the country had
presented a budget in which the expenditure on women has fallen from 5.1 per
cent to 4.9 per cent of the total budget. Even the Nirbhaya Fund for women's
safety has not seen hardly any increase. There has been a marginal increase
in spending on welfare of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes but this
continues to be much less than their share in the population.  Only 2.9 per
cent for welfare of Scheduled Castes and 1.9 per cent of total expenditure
for welfare of Scheduled Tribes. Decline in allocation for Umbrella Scheme
for Scheduled Castes by 2000 crores. Share of allocations for the Ministry
of Minority Affairs has remained unchanged. In the context where
government's own statistics are showing a massive increase in unemployment,
the Finance Minister has cut the allocation for MGNREGA by Rs. 1000 crores
as compared to the revised estimates for last year. Spending on even the
Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, First Modi Government's flagship programme, has been
reduced by about 4500 crores.
 
The Union Budget for 2019-20 reflects the complete denial by the Government
of the real economic situation of the country, which is living proof of the
inability of a private capital led development process to either address the
agrarian crisis or create employment opportunities outside it. This 2019-20
budget, therefore, is bound to mount further economic burdens on the vast
majority of our people. 
 
The CPI(M) calls upon the Indian people to join the protests that are bound
to emerge in the coming days against the various aspects of these
anti-people proposals in order to force the government to adopt policies
aimed at improving people's livelihood. 
 
 
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