In an instant reaction on the Union Budget 2016, Comrade Provash Ghosh, General Secretary, SUCI(C), said in a statement issued on 29-02-16 that the burning problems the countrymen at large are reeling under are spiralling rise in the prices of essential commodities including basic food items, mounting unemployment, spurt in job loss, increasing poverty, dwindling income to a level far less adequate to eke out a bare living, growing number of starvation deaths, corruption at every level of administration, rampant black marketing and hoarding by unscrupulous traders to create artificial scarcity and jack up prices, continuous hike in power and transport tariffs, absence of rudimentary healthcare and scope for proper education etc.
But the Union Finance minister, instead of taking any realistic approach to at least give some relief to the suffering people has chosen to continue with same pro-rich pro-capitalist approach and measures camouflaged under a smokescreen of high-sounding phrases and jargons. What featured prominently in his presentation is a list of tax benefits to industrial houses, corporate sector and start-up ventures and amnesty to tax defaulters besides conventional statement of figures of allotments, slapping tax on PF withdrawal and definite rise in indirect taxation which is borne by common people.
Fighting shy of the question of providing jobs to the unemployed, the FM has advised the youth that instead of job seekers, they should be job creators by becoming entrepreneurs and setting up their own business. Without addressing the basic issues like lowering the prices of agricultural inputs, and breaking the corrupt nexus that denies remunerative prices to the peasants, the FM has only clamoured focus on agricultural development by talking of bettering irrigation and allowing 100% FDI in food processing industry. Instead of taking strong action against the price manipulators, he has talked of bringing depth to speculative trading in commodity derivates which would widen scope for speculation on food articles and push up price further.
Common people are once again called upon to imbibe the truth that only pressure of powerful organized mass movement can make the government yield to some of their just demands for ameliorating the harrowing economic onslaught they are subjected to.