New Delhi: Delhi Finance Minister Manish Sisodia Saturday slammed the Union Budget 2020, saying it offers nothing for education or economy.
Talking to the media, he said that there was great anticipation around the Union Budget and people of Delhi had high hopes from the Central government that justice would finally be done to them, particularly when the elections to the state assembly are merely a week away.
“However, this budget has deceived the people of Delhi in a big way, it lacks any vision and is particularly disappointing in the critical education sector.”
The Finance Minister also slammed the Centre for not increasing Delhi’s share in Central taxes.
“In this year’s Union Budget, the share in Central taxes of Delhi has not been increased from Rs 325 crore which is stagnant since 2001-02. Delhi deserves its legitimate share in Central taxes to finance various developmental projects. ”
The Delhi government had requested the Centre a number of times to enhance the city’s share in Central taxes to at least Rs 7,000 crore.
“The Delhi Budget has increased from Rs 8,739 crore in the year 2001-02 to Rs 60,000 crore in 2019-20, whereas the share in Central Taxes has remained frozen at Rs 325 crore since 2001-02.”
Sisodia said no amount was given to Delhi’s civic bodies, including BJP-ruled three MCDs.
“In the Budget, Centre has not earmarked any funds to local bodies in Delhi although Delhi government had requested for allocation of at least Rs 1,150 crore as basic and performance grants to local bodies in Delhi in 2019-20 (RE) and Rs 1,250 crore in 2020-21 (BE). Delhi government is providing 12.5 per cent of its annual net tax collection to the local bodies… however, they are not getting any financial support from the Government of India.”
Sisodia said this is happening despite the fact that BJP leaders had in 2017, before the MCD elections, publicly declared that they would get funds for the MCDs directly from the Centre.
“What happened to their promise? It was a jumla. BJP needs to answer why it is starving its own ruled MCDs for funds?”
Sisodia called the Income Tax proposals a “complicated announcement”.
“There was a lot of expectation that the salaried class will get some rebate on Income Tax. However, the BJP government has deceived the salaried class also by its complicated announcement which means nothing in real term savings of hard-earned money of the salaried class.”
He said there is no change in the existing tax structure for those who want to remain in the existing structure and for those who may want to opt for the fresh announcement, the entire issue has been complicated beyond any reasonable understanding.
“If one will not get any exemption on savings, what is the use of the new option?”
Sisodia, also the Education Minister, called budget disappointing for the education sector.
“I expected that the BJP government will increase the budget of the education because according to their own National Education Policy, 6 per cent of the GDP should be spent on education.”
He informed that last year the education budget was 3.6 per cent of the GDP and this year they have decreased the share to 3.2 per cent of the GDP.
“This clearly shows the apathy of the BJP towards education.”
Sisodia slammed the Central government for FDI in the education sector as “dangerous”.
“BJP wants to make education a profit-making business, therefore, they have brought FDI. This step shows that the BJP is only interested in giving education to a certain class of people.”