Today in Parliament Union Budget for the next Financial year was presented by Finance Minister (FM) Arun Jaitley. As a non working and retired person let me be very frank, I hardly follow any budget now, knowingly that who so ever runs the govt, the financial planning of the govt always takes into consideration only 2 points- first one is what benefits the govt can offer to poor citizens of the country(which is for vote bank politics) and secondly what incentive and concessions can be provided to entrepreneurs and industrialists to boost the economy and financial markets. The middle class is always caught between these two classes and suffer and they only get few sops or some indirect relief , which is generally offset by inflation. So what FM has given to middle class this year is in the form of Standard Deduction of Rs 40,000, from the taxable income. For senior citizens there is some solace as FM has increased the interest earnings from bank from Rs 10,000 to Rs 50,000 per annum. I would not like to comment on rest of the budget because I am not a financial experts.
There are not many interesting news today, few of them caught my eye:
From yesterday on the social media there is a news that during his visit to Meghalaya, while addressing one rally Rahul Gandhi was shown wearing an expensive jacket. There was comment from BJP people that when Rahul was campaigning in Gujarat while addressing a rally Rahul said, Congress is for poor people and showed to the public that even he is wearing a torn kurta but when he is addressing a rally in Meghalaya he is wearing a jacket costing around Rs 70,000. Afterward I saw a a video on You tube where Renuka Choudhary while rebutting said and I quote ” what is wrong if Rahul is wearing expensive jacket , your PM has been seen wearing Arbon Ka suit.”Unquote.I am astonished by her comment ” your PM ” , if she has said your party leader it was OK, but PM can not be only for BJP supporters, the PM is for whole country. Does in Parliament Congress MP address Narendra Modi as BJP’s PM or only PM. Secondly does she understand the value of Arab, Renukaji Arab is equal to 100 crores in Hindi language, if she was commenting on Modi’s suit which he wore on some occasion hardly cost few lakhs, which was a gift and the said suit was later auctioned and proceed received was donated to charity.
One other news which was quite disturbing was that the Contractors appointed by Mumbai Municipal Corporation for cleaning, sweeping and other conservancy work, deduct the provident fund (PF) @ 12.5% from the salary of their staff but failed to deposit the same with EPF office. This matter came into light when an employee of one of the Contractor expired and their family members went to the office of the Contractor to get his due, that time it was found that there was no record showing the amount deducted from the employees have been deposited with EPF office. Forget that he has not deposited employer’s share but the Contractor has manipulated employees’ share also. I hope the Maharashtra Govt and Municipal Corporation take a strict action against these type of contractors.
In the end, what you my friends.
Awaiting your feed backs and comments.
R. N. Mungale.
1. There are few welcome features in this budget.
2. Opposition has to make some comments. Renuka has done her duty.
3. Least that B. M. C. can do is blacklist this contractor.