The National Secretariat of the Communist Party of India strongly criticises the Union Budget 2023-24 as it fails to take note of rising unemployment, increasing inequality, inflation and emerging multi-dimensional rural crisis. The Budget neglects the ground realities of economy and is an attempt to strengthen the perception that everything is ok with the economy.
The allocations provided for education, health, MNREGA, food security and other social sectors are absolutely inadequate and will be a big blow to the toiling 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, taking inflation into consideration the allocation is less than last year’s. The allocation for NREGS was Rs. 89,000 crores for the year 2022-2023 but now it has been reduced to Rs. 60,000 crores in this budget. Thus, all social sector allocations are reduced.
The budget is an anti-people, anti-development and unrealistic one to meet the present needs.
