Hollow and plain, slams Oppn

New Delhi: The Opposition on Saturday slammed as "hollow and plain" BJP's first full-year union budget, saying it lacked the vision and alleged that it was "repayment" by the BJP government to the rich and the corporates.Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today said the budget reflected lot of "good intentions" of the NDA government but it lacked any clear roadmap to achieve the goals. He said though a lot of funds have been established there was no concrete direction to convert them to solid action plan. Singh was also critical of the government over "inadequate" fund allocation to various welfare measures for rural areas of the country and poor people. Nearly 70 per cent of the people in the country live in rural areas. There was not much attention to them, he said.

"If one asks who is pleased by the Budget, I suspect it will be the corporates and the income-tax payers (3.5 crore). Where does that leave the vast majority of the people, especially the poor, who look up to the government for succour and relief?," Chidambaram said in a statement."While the income-tax payers (3.5 crore) may have been got some relief, all others have been burdened with increases in Excise duty and Service Tax," the former Finance Minister added. He said that there was no justification at all to set back the target date of achieving a fiscal deficit of 3 per cent by one year. "On the fiscal test, therefore the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has failed," Chidambaram who was finance minister in the UPA government and United Front government said.Jaitley pegged fiscal deficit for 2015-16 at 3.9 per cent of GDP and proposed to lower it to 3 per cent by 2017-18, a year later than planned earlier.

"The budget is only for big corporates and industries. It is not a pro-poor budget. This budget is a repayment by the BJP government to the rich and corporates who had supported them during Lok Sabha polls. The budget is all about promises," Leader of Congress in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge said.While Jyotiraditya Scindia termed the budget as "plain and hollow", Congress leader Jairam Ramesh described the budget as "dhanwapsi" programme."You (BJP) had taken in elections. You are paying back," Ramesh alleged.

Criticising the budget for failing to provide "acche din" to poor, BSP Chief Mayawati said, "budget is aimed at helping corporates. It has been made keeping in mind only the rich and big capitalists. It is not in the interests of common man."NCP Chief Sharad Pawar said the budget has not met the expectations of people as it does not have initiatives in economy that could boost infrastructure, agriculture and investments. The provisions regarding service charge will result in more inflation, the former Union Agriculture minister said, adding yesterday Prime Minister Narendra Modi had made fun of the MNREGA and today his government has raised the allocation for the scheme.

TMC leaders Sugata Roy and Darek O'brien said the budget was "anti-people, anti-poor and anti-middle class"."The budget has made a mockery of West Bengal by throwing a chillar (loose change) of Rs 840 crores when the State has spent Rs one Lakh crore so far as its interest burden," Roy said.JD(U) Chief Sharad Yadav said the budget lacked any initiative on three key areas employment, agriculture and black money on which BJP came on power.