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The union budget 2022-23 can be described as ‘virtual’ as it is far removed from ground reality, said Devidas Tuljapurkar, general secretary of the Maharashtra State Bank Employees Federation.
Taking objection to the budget for overlooking core issues like unemployment, poverty and economic disparity, Tuljapurkar said, “FM has used jargons such as Amrut Mohatsav, Atmanirbhar Bharat, Rising India, Digital India so on and so forth but has not come out with any positive and concrete measures to give relief to the farmers, traders, woman, senior citizens, manufacturing sector etc, and thus for all practical purposes, this budget can be called as ‘virtual budget’ since it distances with ground realities of the society.”
“GST collection, GDP data is the only basis on which the finance minister has advanced her arguments,” he added, warning that if the government continues to be in a ‘virtual’ mode, the crisis in the economy will deepen.
He claimed that the budget has disappointed the middle classes and salaried people who were expecting the Centre to provide relief in income tax slabs so as to compensate inflation. “But the government has neglected them utterly,” he said.
“Same is the case with senior citizens for whom the only means of livelihood is interest income on their life-term savings. In the last three years, rate of interest on deposits are drastically reduced and at the same time prices of essential goods have increased. Their lives have become miserable.
He also wondered whether the Centre has legalised cryptocurrency without passing a comprehensive legislation.
“The union finance minister without using the term cryptocurrency has levied tax on it. Does it mean the Centre has legalised the cryptocurrency without passing a legislation?” Tuljapurkar asked.
