Trinamool Congress MP Derek O’ Brien highlights gaps in budget bill, asks viewers to
Trinamool Congress MP Derek O’ Brien says he will give viewers an interactive experience and asks people to go to www.indiabudget.gov.in and download the Finance Minister’s speech. He says many of them cannot do that, because 5 out of 10 people living in rural India do not have proper access to the internet, and yet with this minimum access we are asking MNREGA workers to go online, to use apps, to mark attendance, through bank-accounts, to do e-KYC, to get their wages.
Then let’s do a search on that document, he says, asking viewers to put in the word middle-class. For middle-class, 4 out of 5 Indians are earning less than Rs.117 a day, and net household savings fell to the lowest in the last 50 years, he says.
The second word he suggests is unemployment. 1 out of 3 youth are not in education, employment or training, he points out, adding that 1 out of 4 positions in the union government are vacant and from every Rs. 100 set aside for the PM internship scheme, Rs. 5 was utilised. He highlights a youth scheme launched in West Bengal, where Rs. 1500 is put into the accounts of those aged 24 to 40, saying that in true federalism, you don’t need to copy States.
He then asks people to search for ‘falling rupee’ in the budget speech. He quotes someone (unspecified): “the way the value of the rupee is falling, it seems there’s a competition between the rupee and the union government, (as to) whose prestige will fall faster.” He notes that the Prime Minister did not say this, the Chief Minister of Gujarat said it in 2013.
He then asks people to search for Jan Dhan Yojana, saying that 1 out of 4 accounts are non- operational, and 1 out of 10 accounts are zero-balance.
He pivots to farmers, saying that they are happy in Texas, not in Tamil Nadu; in Kentucky, not Karnataka; Wisconsin, not West Bengal.
He says there is nothing in the budget about environment and air pollution. He says that not much is there about minorities, but we were looking for members for the National Commission of Minorities, but nothing as been filled up. Further 2000 FCRA accounts run by Christian NGOs doing good work, but were shut down, he says. Social minority or LGBTQ, nothing is mentioned.
Nothing has been mentioned about rail safety either, he says. The rail budget has grown 25 times since the UPA 2 regime, but the budget State-by-State has not seen even growth, with States like Gujarat, Delhi, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh seeing double-digit increases, while States like Tamil Nadu and West Bengal have only seen eight-fold and three-fold increases.
He notes that the Finance Minister will reply to the discussion, but the real response will come from Tamil Nadu and Kerala in two months, and from Uttar Pradesh in February 2027.
He quotes another member’s speech from the Lok Sabha: until you understand the difference between what is written in the GST Act, and what is written on a family grocery bill of a poor family, you will keep living in your India, let us live in our India.
Textile Minister Giriraj Singh raises a point of order saying that the name of the Lok Sabha member mentioned by Mr. O’Brien should be expunged from the record.
