Focus on the poor

 

 

In his editorial “At long last, a budget ...” (TSI, July 13-19). Arindam Chaudhuri rightly pointed out that “this budget sees the new beginning of budgets which will focus year after year solely on the poor — the seventy per cent of India which lives on less than a dollar a day.” It’s true that the middle class, whose expectations are always on the higher side, is naturally disappointed at the meagre raise in the tax exemption limit. This budget is slanted in favour of rural people but is not so much for the urban aam aadmi who too have helped the UPA government come to power. Naturally in its return Mukherjee has reiterated his government’s commitment to enact laws for the rural poor and those below the poverty line. Schemes like the Rajiv Gandhi Vidyut Yojana and others under the integrated rural development programme are bound to raise the standard of living of the rural poor. Mukherjee’s special incentives to villages where scheduled castes form about a half of the population may help them stand on their own feet. It is a good budget in a time of recession, and there is no guarantee that any other finance minister would have done any better.

Bidyut Kumar Chatterjee

Faridabad