By IANS,
Kolkata : West Bengal’s opposition CPI-M Tuesday dubbed the budget presented by the Trinamool Congress government for 2013-14 as “puzzling”, saying advance estimates made in state GDP growth rate and employment figures are “questionable”.
Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) leader Asim Dasgupta questioned the basis of the advance estimations made by state Finance Minister Amit Mitra, who presenting the budget Monday said on the basis of advance estimates that Bengal’s GSDP grew by 7.6 percent, agriculture registered a 2.56 percent growth and industry grew by 6.2 percent during 2012-13.
“These growth figures are not clear to me,” Dasgupta, also a former finance minister, told a media conference here.
“When the government does not even have the current data on area under boro rice cultivation in the state, then how can it gave a growth figure in agriculture sector for the current fiscal?” he asked.
On the industry sector, the former minister, also a renowned economist, raised a few questions.
“The government in its budget said industry growth rate would be 6.2 percent this fiscal against 2.9 percent last fiscal. This is doubtful,” he said, pointing out that in the economic survey, published by the Banerjee government, it was mentioned that in organised sector, the numbers of new industry set up and fresh investments made in the state had come down.
“In the survey it also said that in organised sector index of industrial production fell to one percent this fiscal from 2.9 percent last fiscal. In the unorganised sector also the survey did not show any considerable improvement either.
“Then how the government could made an advanced estimate that industrial growth would be 6.2 percent this fiscal? I think it demands clarifications,” Dasgupta said.
“If industrial production comes down, then it will badly hit overall growth rate. How can the budget peg the SGDP growth rate at 7.6 percent in 2012-13?” he said, adding if these questions wee not answered then the budget becomes “very confusing”.
The CPI-M also raised questions on the Trinamool government’s claims that between the first ten months of the current financial year, the state had generated more than 10,00,000 new jobs.
“As an economist, I did not get the answer that how could the government be able to generate ten lakh jobs,” the senior party leader said.
He also alleged that the government’s figures lacked clarity over sector-wise employments.
Dasgupta said the budget would be inflationary as Mitra raised both the minimum and upper ceiling on Value Added Tax (VAT) by one percentage point each in his budget for 2013-14.
The lower VAT rate has now gone up to five percent from four percent.
“Prices of a lot of essential commodities as well as input costs will go up due to the hike in minimum ceiling on VAT,” he added.