RAJ KUMAR
Ranchi, Feb.1: Eminent economist of Jharkhand, Harishwar Dayal, points out positive and negative aspects of the union budget presented today in parliament.
Among the positive points, he said provision for capital expenditure besides proper focus on infrastructure development, digitisation effort, initiatives to promote startups, e-passport besides special schemes for the health education.
Among the negative points, he said, ignorance of the education sector which suffered a lot during the corona pandemic, no focus on the development of health infrastructure and appointment of health personnel and no plan to give a share to states from GST.
When asked to explain the negative points Dayal said: “People had expected some special initiative in the education sector to compensate for the loss the sector had incurred during the pandemic but nothing has been done for that. It was expected from the union government to take some initiatives to do something by starting some special scheme for the education sector by allocating some budget to start remedial classes or making arrangements of bridge courses to ensure that those who hardly get benefitted by online education could find some way for their future development.”
Regarding GST, Dayal said: “Most of the welfare work is done by the state government though it has limited sources of revenue collection. GST share was of great help but from July this year, it will not be provided to the state. The Union government should have allowed GST share for five years as demanded by the states. Though the government accepted that it collected Rs 146996 crore as GST, it did not show any generosity in payment of its share to the state government.”
