Advisor to the West Bengal government and its former finance minister Amit Mitra on Tuesday stated that the proposals of the Union Budget 2022 would impact rural employment as allocation for the MGNREGA was reduced when India is the only country in the world with stagflation, the
There is nothing about livelihood of people for job losses due to Covid, nothing for farmers and salaried people in the budget, he alleged.
The budget reduces the MGNREGA outlay to Rs 73000 crore from Rs 98000 crore at a time when unemployment is high, Mitra said.
MGNREGA is aimed at enhancing livelihood security of households in rural areas of the country by providing at least 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in a financial
It appears that the budget was placed to service the aspiration of a few people, Mitra said.
"There is no social security scheme in the budget. There is no budget scheme for the elderly. There is no scheme for the dead in Covid," he said.
No increase has been made in the centrally sponsored scheme of the state, Mitra said.
On stagflation, he said, "We have a rise in unemployment due to Covid while the wholesale inflation is 14 per cent and the consumer inflation is close to 6 per cent."
Stagflation is a situation when both unemployment and inflation rise. In normal situations, the two behave inversely.
Mitra said Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman did not mention in her budget speech how unemployment will be tackled.
He asked whom to believe about GDP growth when the economic survey says it is 8.8 per cent, RBI says 7.9 per cent and the Union finance minister gives a 9.2 per cent projection for next year.
