The Budget 2012-13 is a serious attack on the common people and the working class. The Left and other opposition parties have been demanding for a more poor-oriented budget so that the common people will get some relief from the high-rocketting prices of vegetables and other essential commodities. But the Government is having other priorities. They want the ordinary persons to be taxed more and the corporates less on the US model. Corporates are be given subsidies and subsidies for the common people are reduced. A look in to the following proposals clearly reveals the agenda of the UPA government. 

‘Outlining its intention of cutting down the ballooning subsidy bill and bringing it under 2 per cent of GDP in 2012-13, the Government pegged the subsidy for food, fuel and fertiliser subsidies for 2012-13 at over Rs 1.79 lakh crore, nearly 14 per cent lower than the revised estimates for the current fiscal.

According to the Budget proposals, the government’s subsidy bill on food, petroleum and fertilisers is estimated at Rs 1,79,554 crore for the 2012-13 fiscal as against Rs. 2,08,503 crore in the revised estimates for this fiscal. Of this, Rs. 75,000 crore has been provided for food, Rs. 61,000 crore for fertilizer and around Rs. 40,000 crore for petroleum subsidy.

Interestingly, the revised estimate for this fiscal is higher by 55 per cent compared to the budget estimate of nearly Rs. 1,34,211 crore. The oil subsidy, which is given to state-run oil marketing firms, such as Indian Oil Corporation, BPCL and HPCL, for selling diesel, domestic LPG to households and kerosene through the PDS system, below cost, is estimated lower at Rs. 43,580 crore in 2012-13, compared to Rs. 68,481 crore in this fiscal.

The government’s food subsidy, given towards running the public distribution system is estimated to marginally rise to Rs. 75,000 crore the next fiscal from Rs. 72,823 crore in 2011-12. The fertiliser subsidy is also pegged lower at Rs. 60,974 crore, as against Rs 67,199 crore in the current fiscal. Under the fertiliser subsidy, the government would provide Rs. 13,398 crore for imported urea, Rs. 19,000 crore for indigenous (urea) fertilisers, and Rs. 28,576 crore for the sale of decontrolled fertilisers (DAP, MOP and complexes) at a subsidised rate to farmers.

The Finance Minister said he would endeavour to restrict the expenditure on Central subsidies to under two per cent of the GDP in 2012-13 and subsequently, further down to 1.75 per cent of the GDP.’

It is clear that the concern of the UPA II government is for the corporates and big business and not the common people who brought it in to power. The Congress  has seen the wrath of the people in the last assembly elections, where congress leaders lost even in the hereditary constituencies of its top most leaders  Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi. But it has not learnt any  lessons from this defeat.

Oppose and defeat the anti-people measures.