Maharashtra Government slams Union Budget 2020

The multi-party Maha Vikas Aghadi Government has slammed the Narendra Modi Government saying that the budget tabled by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is away from economic realities and paints a rosy picture.

Maharashtra Chief Minister and Shiv Sena President Uddhav Thackeray said the country is currently witnessing its lowest growth rates.

"This is the lowest growth rate in recent years and not in consonance with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s dream to achieve a five trillion-dollar economy,” Thackeray said.

He slammed the move disinvestment moves in LIC and IDBI, privatisation of Indian Railways and indicative of the country’s precarious economic situation.

Thackeray said a huge outlay was expected for basic infrastructure development which has been belied, the Finance Minister’s claims on GST are not in tune with ground realities as GST has resulted in crises in MSMEs, spiraling inflation has hit the people hard, demand has fallen, industries are in difficulty, workers are facing problems, etc and all these problems should have been addressed.

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He said injustice has been meted out to the country’s economic powerhouse Mumbai and Maharashtra, with insufficient allocation for developing infrastructure or Metro projects and the improvement of Mumbai’s lifeline (suburban railways) and barring the known mention of the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train, there’s nothing for the development of railways in Maharashtra.

Maharashtra has been discriminated even in the FM’s mention of developing five top historical locations as ‘Iconic Site’ with nothing selected but Gujarat’s International Finance Centre has been prioritised over Mumbai which is the country’s economic engine contributing maximum to the national economy.

Meanwhile, the Congress expressed concern that Mumbai and Maharashtra do not figure in the budget. "It gives most of the tax to the national exchequer, but it does not figure in the budget," Revenue Minister Balasaheb Thorat said.

He said that Sitharaman speaks of the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train but it is not going to help Maharashtra in any way. "Out opposition to the bullet train remains," said Thorat, who is the state Congress President.

He pointed out that the Finance Minister states that the income of farmers would be doubled by 2022, which was a promise made by Modi government in 2014. "For doubling the farmer's income, the growth rate should have been 11 per cent whereas it is now just 2 per cent," he said.

Thorat said that the FM announced five more smart cities and 100 new airports but what happened to the earlier announced smart cities.

NCP spokesperson Mahesh Tapase pointed out India stands at 102 out of 117 in Global Hunger Index. "India has slipped 10 places to 68th rank in Global Competitiveness Index 2019. The Indian Rupee is constantly depreciating, trade deficit is $118 billion, farm crisis is at its highest. More than 11 million have lost jobs post demonetisation and hasty implementation of GST, unemployment is highest in 45 years, MSME is worst hit in the economic slowdown, banks not coming forward to give credit to MSME under CGTMSME schemes," he said.

He said BJP should steer away from vote banks politics and concentrate more on economic prosperity of the common man if it is serious about higher GDP.