said although the government had painted a rosy picture of the economy, people did not “feel high growth” due to high unemployment and inflation.
Former finance minister and senior Congress leader P Chidambaram on Wednesday put forth five key demands including higher floor wages and guaranteed crop prices while speaking on the Union Budget in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday and sought finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s response on the matter.
Congress MP P Chidambaram speaks in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday. (Sansad TV)
He said although the government had painted a rosy picture of the economy, people did not “feel high growth” due to high unemployment and inflation.
Chidambaram said he, on behalf of his party, the Congress, demands that the daily national minimum wage for all jobs be raised to ₹400 and provide legal guarantee for floor prices for crops set by the Centre.
He also sought scrapping of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) exam for entry into state-run medical colleges, which this year has been mired in controversy after alleged question paper leaks. At least, states that don’t want the NEET exam should be exempted, he said.
Among other demands, Chidambaram said the government should withdraw the Agnipath scheme, which provides for four-year tenures in the defence forces. Unpaid balances of educational loans up till March 2024 should be written off, he said.
“You may think these demands will die down, but they will only echo more inside this chamber and the country,” he said.
Sitharaman and external affairs minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar were present when Chidambaram spoke.
The Congress MP said the finance minister in this year’s budget speech failed to mention the words Tamil Nadu, where she was born and educated, and even didn’t quote any great poet from the state, such as Thiruvalluvar.
“I don’t grudge the schemes for Andhra Pradesh and Bihar. But what about other states? If you pick and choose, it will be a death knell for federalism. How were Andhra Pradesh and Bihar treated before April and in the last 10 years?”
The Congress leader accused the government of taking inflation “not too seriously”, questioning the Reserve Bank’s assertion that there was “no job crisis”.
“The RBI is supposed to be cautious, conservative and neutral. It is cautious, conservative but not neutral at all.”
Chidambaram said the new employee-linked incentive schemes mean that the production-linked incentive schemes had failed to create jobs.
Chidambaram cited an instance from Madhya Pradesh, where there were 11,000 applicants, including engineers and MBAs, who had applied for 15 low-skilled government jobs. “It’s sad to say, the applicants included a person who had just written his exams for the post of a judge in Madhya Pradesh.” In UP, over 2.4 million people had applied for 7,000 openings, he said.
The Economic Survey has stated that inflation was “low, stable and moving towards 4% target”, Chidambaram said. “It’s been moving towards the target for a long time, but when will it reach its destination? If inflation is low, why is RBI not reducing the benchmark rate from 6.5% for 13 months now?”
Chidambaram said the government should reveal the deflator being used to estimate inflation-adjusted GDP growth. Deflator is a figure that accounts for a change in price levels between two periods of time.
The government has adopted a deflator that has been severely criticised, he said adding, “If you take a deflator which is less than 1.7%, then you will get 9.2% GDP growth, if you take 0.5%, you will even cross 10%.”
“People will feel high growth only if there are lot of goods and services, lot of investments and people’s pockets are jingling with coins and currency,” he said.
