Similarly, the Congress’s apprenticeship scheme was a simple on-the-job, one-year training programme for youth under 25 with any private or government company with an annual turnover of Rs 10 crore or more. Instead, the FM has restricted this to the ‘top 500’ companies, who are expected to take 4,000 interns every year, which is unreasonable and impractical. Again, the idea of an internship or apprenticeship is powerful, but the design seems to be mired in a bureaucratic tangle.The Modi government continues its capital expenditure push with nearly one-quarter of all expenditure allocated towards building infrastructure. This is the highest in two decades. While infrastructure is a necessary and fruitful pursuit, it runs the risk of crowding out private investment, which has been the case for the last few years. There were no overt attempts to boost consumption demand through direct cash assistance or other such measures. If any, food and fertiliser subsidies have been cut to pay for the new employment schemes, which is a big gamble. Curiously, for all the nationalistic jingoism, defence allocation has also been slightly reduced from the revised estimates for 2023-24.Taxation, which is the fulcrum of a government’s budget, continues to be regressive, with the only progressive announcement being abolition of the ‘angel tax’ to remove investment barriers for start-ups. Interestingly, this is also another promise from the Congress manifesto the FM has adopted. The direct-indirect tax ratio continues to be 35:65, a polar opposite to other big economies in the world. There was no commitment on simplification of GST, and corporates continue to be showered with incentives and reduced taxes at the expense of the middle class and poor. The budget rightfully increased taxes for stock market transactions to reduce speculative gambling and cool the markets down.
Source link
