Bengal govt criticises union budget, term it as ‘misleading and bereft of direction’

Kolkata, July 05 (HS): As expected the West Bengal government today termed the Union Budget proposals for 1919-20 as ‘misleading and bereft of any direction for growth’ when all Chambers of Commerce and industries have welcomed it with an open mind.

Giving their initial reactions to the budget proposals,as presented by Union Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in Parliament earlier today, West Bengal Education minister and spokesman of ruling Trinamool Congress Partha Chatterjee said in his chamber in the state Assembly here this afternoon that as expected no special package was announced for Bengal in the two hour long speech of the Union Finance minister and as always the state was deprived of any major project even for the Railways.

Claiming that the baloon of hopes for an all round and speedy development of the country burst before the people today, Chatterjee claimed that it was also truly reflected in the downturn of the share markets since this morning,.

Also criticising the finance minister’s announcement of imposing an additional one per cent cess on petroleum products making it more costly for the common people, he said there was no major gain for the common people in terms of direct taxes except maintaining that there would be no Income tax for those earning up to Rs five lakhs per annum. But ,there was no other benefit for other salaried income people, he pointed out.

According to, the TMC spokesman, there was also no clear mention about how to generate more revenue to become a five trillion USD economy by 2024. ‘It is nothing but a day dream and is almost next to impossible to achieve it unless there was a double digit growth of economy for a long period’, he said.

He also questioned the government intention of welcoming more foreign students in educational institutions and said unless the details of budget proposals were available nothing much could be said in this connection.

Similar views were also expressed by TMC Rajya Sabha member Manas Bhunia and crititicised the possibilities of  increasing the price of several household items like cooking gas,laptops and mobile phones because of higher taxes on them.