New Delhi, Feb 9 Congress MP Kapil Sibal on Wednesday said in the Rajya Sabha that the Union Budget 2022-23 lacks long term plan and vision.
Participating in the general discussion on the Budget, he said words like 'green', 'digital' were used but words like 'food' 'security' and 'poverty' were missing. He asked whether the budget was for the people who buy airports.
Referring to the Finance Minister, he said, "You look at the skies, you should look at the ground," and emphasised on the need for a budget based on reality.
Talking on the issue of unemployment, Sibal said that it can be tackled sector-wise. In the manufacturing sector, over 9.8 million jobs have been lost, five million in the hotel and tourism sector, four million in the education sector, 3.32 million in central government organisations and 1.27 million in railways.
He also said that it's good that you have given two lakh crore in the infrastructure sector but when you build roads, these people will not be absorbed because the majority of workers in the road sector are unskilled workers. The Congress lawmaker further asserted, "Wealth is always created by universities and never by industries." He says giving benefits to industries will not create wealth.
Highlighting the importance of investing in Research and Development, the Congress lawmaker said, "Give students the freedom to think."
"Unless we invest in the university system to create Intellectual Properties (IPs) it is hard to create wealth", he said.
"Since 2014, I have been experiencing Rahu kaal, not Amrit kaal", he said, adding that the leader of the tukde tukde gang is the one who drives a wedge between people and "the one who does tukde tukde of the Constitution".
BJP MP Sushil Kumar Modi while speaking on the Budget, said that Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has a degree from JNU, not Harvard like P. Chidambaram and she presented a 100 times better Budget. "If we did not have PM Modi's leadership and the frontline workers, 50 lakh not five lakh people would have died of Covid-19", Sushil Modi said.
Appreciating the Budget, he said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi understood the need for vaccines and paved the way for its research and so far, over 100 crore of the countrymen have been vaccinated and soon all Ind will be vaccinated.
Trinamool Congress MP Dola Sen said this Budget gave no assurance to the young, women, jobless migrants and MGNREGA workers. "When the government is trying to privatise everything it is time the government also to be made private", Sen commented.
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