Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has given her own style budget this time too. From his first budget till the seventh budget of this year, he never did anything for any particular section of the society which would satisfy the wishes of the people related to it. Just as a common housewife, while making the budget of the house, insists on keeping the house running smoothly without anyone’s help. Not that she tries to subdue anyone or subdue everyone. Nirmala has been presenting the same kind of budget every time. Its advantage has been that despite the Corona crisis and the economic slowdown in the world, India has been moving at a normal pace.
Nirmala never outlined big schemes in her budget to garner applause by making big promises. Its disadvantage is that every year when the budget comes, there is no enthusiasm among the countrymen. But for the Bharatiya Janata Party, it has now become a priority to generate such enthusiasm among the people of the country. Because after the defeat in the Lok Sabha elections, the party has suffered a lot in the by-elections also. Right now by-elections are going to be held on 10 seats in UP. There are assembly elections in 3 states, in such a situation, there should have been such a budget for the countrymen which can create hope among the people for something big to happen or change. On the contrary, the Finance Minister has taken such decisions in the budget which are going to harm the core voters of BJP.
1- BJP’s core voters suffered loss due to increase in LTCG.
There can be no doubt that the number of people investing in the stock market in the country is increasing very rapidly. About 10 crore demat accounts have been opened in the country. Nearly 90 percent of those who invest money in the stock market are hard core voters of BJP. In this budget, the Finance Minister has increased the tax on long term capital gains on all financial and non-financial assets from 10 percent to 12.5 percent. Along with this, the tax on short-term capital gains has been increased from 15 percent to 20 percent. Obviously, the income of those buying and selling shares will reduce. Perhaps this was the underlying reason for the reaction the market gave as soon as the budget was presented on Tuesday. A person who invests money in the stock market will curse the Finance Minister every day. Which will not be in the interest of Bharatiya Janata Party.
2- Profit in selling house reduced
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has announced the abolition of indexation benefit on sale of property. It simply means that investment in houses will not be very profitable. Along with this, the category of people who have the ability to buy a new house by selling their house, are mostly supporters of Bharatiya Janata Party. People selling properties will not be able to increase their purchase price and will not be able to reduce their capital gains. In the till now system, long term capital gain arising from sale of property was taxed at 20% within the indexation benefit. Now the new LTCG tax rate of 12.5% will be applicable without indexation benefit for capital gains on sale of property.
3-Will giving incentives increase employment?
The defeat of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Lok Sabha elections had made it clear that the issue of employment proved to be decisive. In the review of the reasons for the defeat in Uttar Pradesh, it was also said that the issue of paper leak and employment has been such that it has made it difficult for the Bharatiya Janata Party. The question is whether the announcements made this time regarding employment will help in reducing unemployment. How successful will we be in removing it? According to the announcements made in the budget to increase jobs, the government will transfer one month’s salary to the bank accounts of employees who get jobs for the first time. This means that this will reduce the burden on the companies that employ them. This will encourage them to provide jobs.
This amount will be transferred in three installments which will be up to a maximum of Rs 15,000. It is estimated that 30 lakh youth will benefit from this scheme. But will companies recruit only by giving incentives? On the contrary, the companies will absorb the incentive amount and will not get employment. To increase employment, there is a need to develop industries and increase the purchasing power of people. The purchasing power of common people is continuously decreasing in the country. In such a situation, it may become difficult for industries also. When there is no demand for production then why will the industrialist do production? When production decreases, who will provide jobs on the basis of three months intensive?
To recover the economy after Covid and increase employment, special tax incentives were given to industries so that they could provide jobs to people, but what happened? Industries did not expand. Same situation is going to happen with internship scheme also.
4-The states having assembly elections did not get anything
Assembly elections are to be held in Maharashtra, Haryana and Jharkhand this year. The election states had high expectations from the budget. But there is no hope for these states, let alone meeting them. There was no concern about the division of votes of Scheduled Castes and Backward Castes in the Lok Sabha elections. No special plan was seen for Other Backward Classes or Scheduled Castes and Tribes. It was expected that the by-elections and elections to be held in 3 states would be Keeping this in mind, in the first budget of Modi Government 3.0, the government will open its treasury for the election states. In the budget, it has been announced to start the Prime Minister Tribal Advanced Village Campaign. Under this campaign being launched to improve the socio-economic condition of the people of the tribal community, the target has been set to provide complete coverage of government schemes to the tribal families. In this, 63 thousand tribal dominated villages are to be included and five crore tribal people will be benefited. Tribes constitute about 27 percent of the total population of tribal-dominated Jharkhand. In such a situation, Jharkhand can also be expected to get the benefit of this scheme. But these plans are not able to do branding of the party. People assume that these are government schemes and that they were bound to get them. If in their place some scheme like loan, scholarship or assistance had been started then it would have been different. Similarly, an announcement could have been made to start some big project in the election states.
5-No announcement made for farmers
Farmers’ votes are very important in Haryana and Maharashtra. There was a need of the Bharatiya Janata Party to make some such announcements in the budget for the farmers so that they can get some hope of change in their lifestyle. The government has allocated a budget of Rs 1 lakh 52 thousand crore for agriculture and related sectors. . Announcing a comprehensive review of the agricultural research system to increase production and focus on development of climate-resilient varieties, the Finance Minister also said that 109 new high-yielding and climate-resilient varieties of 32 agricultural and horticultural crops will be released. . In fact, the decisions taken in the budget are going to increase agricultural production. But farmer leader Rakesh Tikait has been saying till date that what will the farmer get by increasing the production. Unless there is a system for selling the crop, if the crop is in excess, the farmer will sell it at throwaway prices or keep it at home and let it rot. Many promises have been made in the budget for the farmers. But there is not a single promise that seems to be directly benefiting the farmers.
The Finance Minister has also said that details of 6 crore farmers and their lands will be entered in the registry, National Cooperative Policy will be brought which will accelerate the development of rural economy. No direct announcement has been made in the budget for Haryana and Maharashtra, but a large population of both these states is associated with agriculture and related sectors.