Editorial 1st Quarter 2022

                                               EDITORIAL FIRE MAGAZINE

                                                      FEBRUARY 2022                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

                                                  

                                         THOTA  HANUMAIAH   CHIEF  EDITOR

AILRSA DENOUNCES THE UNION BUDGET 2022-23 BEING

                    ANTI PEOPLE AND PROCORPORATE.

The Union Budget  presented on 01-02-2022 in Parliament, in continuance of the Economic Survey presented a day before, reflects its callousness to the horrible miseries  of huge loss of livelihood, cuts in real income earnings, deepening poverty and  hunger in the midst of spiraling price-rise, being suffered by the vast majority of  people, while a handful of big corporate class  minting  huge benefits and profits thereby, depicting an impermissible inequality,not acceptable in any civilized society.

 The private consumption expenditure is still short of the pre-pandemic levels and industries are facing low capacity utilization and rising inventories primarily, because of very low demand in the economy. In such a scenario what was needed in the budget was a big push towards job creation and increasing domestic demand. The budget fails miserably in addressing these issues. 

The Budget is presented in a  desperate  privatization drive embracing the infrastructure, manufacturing and mineral sectors in entirety, facilitating transfer of resources from National treasure to private hands, both domestic and foreign. The Finance Minister in her budget speech showered self praises for successful bonanza of the National Carrier Air India and Nilachal Ispat to the TATAs and further, reiterating the  resolve of government to transfer the  state-owned capital assets to private sector, both domestic and foreign. In the present  BJP led NDA regime , the making of economic policy  is  being hijacked out of the purview of the Parliamentary process and the  Budget making reveals the  deliberate  authoritarian and anti-people destructive trend, much to the detriment of the interests of nation.

In the background of drastic fall in consumption expenditure in the economy, the worst  sufferers are the majority of the toiling people in absolute distress.Therefore,     the need of  hour is an aggressive demand-augmentation measures through focused enhancement of expenditure for the welfare and social heads and focused programme of employment generation.  Instead, the Government true to its class character and corporate subservience  orientation, has moved in diagonally opposite direction.  The claim of 60 lakh additional employment generation in five years is nothing but a cruel joke on the unemployed youth.

The Budget, brazenly, exposed its  anti-people  character on all counts. The revenue expenditure budgeted in 2022-23 of Rs 3.19 lakh crore supposed to include the so called host of welfare schemes named after Prime Minister marks an increase of less than 1% only, despite a huge increase in GST collection as claimed by Finance Minister in her budget speech. To be specific on some of those items, the allocation on MNREGA is reduced by Rs,25000 crore from Rs.98000 crore to Rs 73000 crore. The food subsidy  under National Food Security Act has been slashed down by 30%, fertilizer subsidy has also been  drastically cut by 25% and petroleum subsidy by 11% in the face of skyrocketing fuel prices. Even the allocation for Mid-day-meal scheme, (now renamed as PM-Poshan) faced a drastic cut by Rs 1267 crore.

Similarly, allocations for MSP for paddy and wheat has been slashed down by Rs 11000 crore, the allocations for PM Fasal Bima Yojana, PM-Kisan Yojana, Crop Husbandry, etc., have faced a drastic cut. For National Health Mission, and Anganwadi (ICDS), there is no increase in allocations meaning thereby a cut, if inflation is taken into account.There are many such examples of anti people measures.

Budget did not bother about the miseries being faced by the working people during the pandemic by way of loss of livelihood and earnings. Despite demands for relief and expansion of social security universally for all, the budget remained absolutely in a denial mode for the working people who actually create the wealth of  nation.  On the other hand,the Govt has been squeezing cruelly the toiling people through increasing burden of indirect taxes along with orchestrated price rise of all essential commodities including fuel prices, besides drastic cut in food subsidies.

On the other hand, the Govt is liberal in showering concessions on its corporate masters. The Government,in the current budget, in the name of measures for further simplifying tax administration for facilitating compliance, is actually indulging, rather promoting tax-evasion by the habitually defaulting and tax-evading corporate community. As per the documents  circulated along with budget, in 2020-21 tax concessions in the form of incentive to corporate was a whopping Rs 72041 crore, over and above the  huge tax-default by the same big-business class of Rs 4.05 lakh crore. Such a crime on the nation and the people is being further indulged instead of being curbed with strong hand.

Over the last two years, there has been a huge cut in LPG subsidy. Last year, allocation was cut by 60 per cent and another 60 per cent cut has been inflicted in the budget for 2022-23. No new allocation has been budgeted for the unorganised workers who were registered through e-shram portals.

During the last two years of pandemic, the rich have become richer.  According to Oxfam, wealth of India’s richest families reached a record high in 2021.  The top ten people in India hold 57 per cent of the wealth.  Yet, there is no proposal to impose tax on these super profits and use these resources to provide relief to the vast majority of suffering people. 

The AILRSA denounces the current Budget as being totally anti-people, pro corporate and utterly destructive so far as the national economy is concerned. The working class must oppose the destructive policy regime  through united resistance, countrywide.

The AILRSA extends its unstinting support to the two day countrywide general strike on 28-29 March 2022 against this destructive anti-people policy regime.