A budget of tall promises, says Imtiaz Jaleel

Aurangabad: The Union budget presented by finance minister Arun Jaitley looks very ambitious but practically impossible on many fronts. While a few decisions like increasing duty on cigarettes and tobacco items, gold and silver, cars and SUVs is ok but the same should have been applied to liquor also.

While the government claims that the income of farmers would be doubled in 5 five years, the finance minister has failed to elaborate how they could achieve this. Also there has been no mention of any scheme for minorities which goes against their slogan of Sabka saath sabka vikas.

Also the budget was expected to spell some harsh measures for recovery of bad loans. Instead the finance minister simply said that the debt recovery tribunal would be strengthened. Most of the non performing assets in banks are top coprorates who have close links with the ruling political class which is why a staggering amount of Rupees four lakh crore is to be recovered by public sector banks which is actually peoples money. Alo little has been said about the recovery of black money whioch the government had promised.

Also there was lot of expectations of the salaried class that they may get some relief in taxes considering the inflation but even they have been neglected.

The overall budget is nothing but tall promises with a view to enhance the image of the government and the party after having failed on all fronts.