Budget was the talk of the town

S Vishnu Sharmaa, INN/Chennai, @Svs037

Budget centered discussion organised by Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT) garnered good deal of attention recently. Eminent personalities expressed views on the budget presented by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the parliament recently.

VIT chancellor G Viswanathan said meager one percent of GDP allocation for health and less than four percent allocation of the GDP for education is not a good sign for the development of the country.

He also said government should come out with policies to pull people out of the vicious cycle of poverty. It is a shame that the number of beggars was increasing in India and West Bengal tops the list, he said.

Columnist Mr. S. Gurumurthy, who moderated the discussion, said the Union Budget was a great transformation and a sign of globalization and liberalization. He said only 3 percent of the people involved themselves in share market and the rest is coming from foreign direct investment, which is not good.

Popular columnist and chartered accountant S Gurumurthy said union budget was a great transformation and a sign of globalization and liberalization. Government and the Reserve Bank of India did not go together on several issues, which should be changed. He said he was personally against external borrowing, pledging foreign exchange reserves.

Tamilnadu Congress Committee spokesperson S. Peter Alphonse said the in the budget the states had lost their autonomy.

The new taxes were in the form of surcharge and cess, which came under non poolable sector. He said the budget did not offer anything to the people below the poverty line. 

Leader of the DMK parliamentary party in the Rajya Sabha Tiruchi N. Siva said the budget turned out to be a disappointment. There was no mention about eradication of unemployment.

He said after demonetization lot of amount were still remained blocked as only 15,71,000 crores of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes were deposited in the Banks when 15,91,000 crores was in circulation.

The GST has affected the manufacturing states and privatization of profit making public sector units.

AIADMK MLA S. Semmalai described the budget as visionary but demanded that the cess on fuel should be withdrawn. The Budget has shown a good path to the development of the country, he said.

 

K. Balakrishnan of CPI (M) Tamilnadu state secretary said that it was a bad practice to merge loss making public sector undertakings with profit making PSUs which he claimed had made all profit making PSUs as loss making ones.

The Budget did not offer anything for farmers nor spoke about waiver of loans for farmers who were committing suicides throughout the country.

Vinoj P. Selvam, youth wing president of Tamilnadu BJP described the budget as development oriented and it was budget for the next 25 years.

He said various schemes in the Budget did not come to the light which was unfortunate.

S.S. Balaji, deputy general secretary of Vidudalai Chiruthaigal Katchi said the allocation for SCs and STs have been drastically cut and there was no increase in the exemption limit of individuals income tax limit.

G. V. Selvam, vice president of VIT was among those present.

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