The All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) Assam state committee on Thursday said that the union budget presented by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman failed to address the issues of unemployment and job crisis. AITUC Assam state committee secretary Ranjan Chowdhury in a statement said that the country is facing the major challenges of unemployment and lack of job opportunities and the ruling party had failed to keep its election promises.
“I strongly criticise the Union Budget 2023-24 as it fails to take note of rising unemployment. There is no solution to address rampant unemployment in the country. There is no proposal for unemployed people in this year’s budget. In 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had promised to offer 2 crore jobs every year which did not happen. Moreover there is increasing inequality, inflation, and emerging multi-dimensional rural crisis,” Chowdhury in a statement said.
He futher termed the budget as anti-people, anti- development and unrealistic to meet the requirements of the people.
“The budget neglects the ground realities of the economy and is an attempt to strengthen the perception that everything is okay with the economy.
The allocations for education, health, MNREGA, food security, and other social sectors are inadequate and will be a big blow to the tolling masses pushing them towards greater vulnerability and exposing them to hunger and devastation.
The allocation on agriculture has been reduced by Rs 8,500 crores when farmers are suffering from high input costs. No attempt is made in the budget to help them. The capital subsidy on MSMEs is not clear leading to false claims.
Food subsidy is reduced from Rs 2.8 lakh crore to Rs 1.97 lakh crore. ICDS allocation is kept the same as last year’s.The allocation for NREGS was Rs 89,000 crore for 2022-2023 but now it has been reduced to Rs 60,000 crore in this budget. Thus all social sector allocations are reduced,” the AITUC leader said.
