Govt subsidising rich: Left parties

The Finance Minister has expressed concern about the fiscal deficit whose revised estimate is Rs 5,20,925 crore. But this is lower than the revenue forgone figure of Rs 5,73,630 crore. This implies that fiscal deficit is primarily caused by sops given to the rich in terms of revenue foregone and the burden of meeting this deficit is passed on to the poor by means of cutting expenditures, the CPM said.

The tax not collected,mainly from the rich,is Rs 53,000 crore more than the fiscal deficit. So the government is only subsidising the rich and the corporates, said senior CPM leader Sitaram Yechury.

He said the Budget documents for the last fiscal show that social sector spending was much less than what was allocated.

CPIs Gurudas Dasgupta called it a lollypop election Budget with minor additional investment and full of tokenism.

It has not addressed the key question of revenue generation. It appears to be a technical jugglery and we will have to see what comes out of it in real terms, his party colleague D Raja said.