Jammu February 1 (KNO) : This last budget of the Modi government is a clear commitment to serve the interests of foreign and domestic big corporate. It aims at mounting further attacks on the vast majority of the working people.
The budget does not seek to mobilize revenues by increasing direct taxes applicable to the rich, in spite of the fact that the top one per cent of the Indian population garnered 73 per cent of the additional wealth
generated in 2017. On the contrary, governmental expenditures increasingly rely on indirect taxes which are a burden on the common people. In fact, the proportion of the direct taxes in gross central taxes budgeted to come down from 51.6 per cent to 50.6 per cent.
A lot of fanfare is being created by packaging the budget as pro-poor by
projecting massive expenditures on agriculture, rural development and
national health care scheme of medical coverage of 10 crore households upto Rs. 5 lakhs per year. The health care scheme is a mere repackaging of the existing one and no additional allocations have been budgeted. It is clear that this scheme will also be used to give handouts to insurance companies. Experiences have shown that health or crop insurance schemes have resulted in a profit bonanza for corporates rather than benefits to the people.(KNO)