Congress: Unkindest cut on food, fertiliser subsidies

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, February 1

The Congress on Tuesday described the Union Budget 2022-23 as the most capitalist one ever delivered and slammed it for “the unkindest subsidy cuts”.

Citing the slashed subsidy for food, fertilisers and petroleum, former Finance Minister P Chidambaram said welfare of the masses had been “thrown to the winds”.

The former FM lamented the reduced food subsidy (Rs 2,86,219 crore in 2021-22 to Rs 2,06,481 crore in 2022-23); fertiliser (Rs 1,40,000 crore to Rs 1,05,000 crore) and petroleum (Rs 6,517 crore to Rs 5,813 crore) as the “most unkindest cut in the subsidies meant for the poor”.

Chidambaram said the total subsidy bill had been cut by 27 per cent.

The Congress said the government behaved and acted as though it was on the right path and had delivered on the issues that mattered to the common people.

“This is false. I was astonished that the Finance Minister was outlining a plan for the next 25 years, which she called the ‘Amrit Kaal’. The government seems to believe that the present does not need any attention and the people living in the present can be asked to wait patiently until the ‘Amrit Kaal’ dawns. This is nothing, but mocking the people of India, especially the poor and the deprived,” said Chidrambaram.

He said the Budget did not factor in the reality that India’s economy had not yet recovered to the level of the pre-pandemic year of 2019-20, and the loss of jobs in Covid years.

It’s most capitalist

The Budget speech was the most capitalist one ever read by a Finance Minister. The FM has mastered the jargon of capitalist economics. — P Chidambaram, former FM

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