By IANS,
New Delhi : Union Finance minister P. Chidambaram Thursday announced the budget for 2013-14 in parliament.
Here are some of the key quotes:
Manmohan Singh (Prime Minister): “The finance minister has done a commendable job in containing the deficit while simultaneously addressing the growth imperatives. If India succeeds in getting to a growth rate of eight percent, the winner will be the people of India, especially our youth, who need desperately new productive job opportunities.”
Sushma Sawaraj (Bharatiya Janata Party): “It is an unimaginative, dull budget. Everybody expected the budget – as it comes before the next elections – to bring hope to the nation but we all are very much disappointed. Aam admi (Common man) has not been named even once in the budget.”
Arun Jaitley (BJP): “The budget is verbose, but on substance extremely low. First put the economy in distress; then a helpless finance minister comes out with a budget in which he had very little elbow space.”
Sitaram Yechury (Communist Party of India-Marxist): “Chidambaram has presumed that taxes will grow up. These are unreliable. In the first nine months of the last year, the central excise collection fell by 16 per cent. From where is he going to get an increase in the tax revenues?”
Mayawati (Bahujan Samaj Party): “The economic condition is bad, yet the government has made so many announcements for the SCs and minorities. But the announcements are misleading, as there is nothing new in this budget and nothing for the poor.”
Mulayam Singh Yadav (Samajwadi Party): “This budget has completely ignored the farmers. It is meant for only 10 percent of the population, while the interests of 65 percent engaged in farming has been ignored. The SP will oppose the budget in parliament.”
Gurudas Dasgupta (Communist Party of India): “This is a lollypop election budget. They have foregone Rs.67,000 crore last year. There is no serious effort to collect revenue.”