The Communist Party of India (Marxist) will criticise the entire approach of the general budget. The party is of the opinion that the budget is pro-rich and has underlined the need to restructure development strategies.
The CPI(M) will also raise issues like the proposed disinvestment in profit-making public sector undertakings and throwing open the insurance sector to private players.
CPI(M) politbureau member S Ramachandran Pillai says, There is no question of my party agreeing to divestment in profit-making public sector undertakings like ONGC and Indian Oil Corporation as this goes against the spirit of the United Front's common minimum programme.
He added that his party had been demanding an approach where the rich should be made to pay more taxes.
But even before the budget, the finance minister had already burdened the common man by raising the prices of petroleum products and the entire approach of the budget is pro-rich, Pillai said.
The CPI will focus its attack on the failure to restrict the fiscal deficit to 4 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP).
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Although finance minister P Chidambram had said during his budget speech that the fiscal deficit would be restricted to 5 per cent of GDP, CPI leaders say it may go up further.
They want higher taxes, increased social spending, and a low fiscal deficit.
CPI deputy general secretary N Giri Prasad said that the finance minister had announced that Rs 5,000 crores would be raised from disinvestment of public sector units, which was hard to meet.
Even Manmohan Singh had announced last year that he would raise Rs 7,000 crore from disinvestment of PSUs, he said, adding that he could not raise more than Rs 500 cores.
He observed that, unless revenue expenditure was controlled by cutting down a lot of wasteful expenditure, the fiscal deficit could not be brought down.
As it is, the interest payment is going up and it has reached Rs 65,000 crores and there is no sign of it coming down, Prasad said. He suggested that one of the ways in which the fiscal deficit could be brought down was by augmenting revenue collection.
The FIs, banks and industries should be asked to be cautious about their spending, Prasad said. They should cut down on wasteful expenditure, he added. He also suggested that the savings rate, which has fallen from 24 per cent to 20 per cent over the past few years, should increase till it reaches 30 per cent.
There is an urgent need to control the spiralling fiscal deficit. The increase in fiscal deficit puts additional burden on the capital account as the revenue account is not able to meet the revenue expenditure. This hampers developmental works, Prasad said.