Budget 2019: Shashi Tharoor Thinks Sitharaman’s Maiden Budget Is A ‘Missed Opportunity’
The budget does nothing to create jobs, Tharoor says.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s maiden budget missed the opportunity of catering to the real needs of the vast majority of India, according to Shashi Tharoor.
“The budget does nothing to create jobs,” Tharoor, member of Parliament and senior Congress leader, told BloombergQuint in an interaction after the presentation of the Union Budget 2019. “I am not sure what a $5-trillion economy means to the aam aadmi (common man).”
The Bharatiya Janata Party’s budget is “neither here, nor there”, Tharoor said, adding that the “budget showcases a big gap between the rhetoric and the reality”.
Sitharaman, he said, didn’t discuss if and how the government would increase employment opportunities in the country. Also, the government’s claims of becoming a $5-trillion in next few years is a “mere visionary aspiration and is not supported by any tangible road map”, he said.
According to Tharoor, the budget opened up very limited opportunities for the private sector investments beyond what already existed. “The government did not address the real worries of the nation.”
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