New Delhi, May 3: Opposition members in the Lok Sabha on Thursday charged the Vajpayee government with ignoring ground realities while shaping its economic policies and programmes and said the country was witnessing rising poverty and unemployment due to faulty plans.Participating in the discussion on the Finance Bill for 2000-2001, they asked finance minister Yashwant Sinha to improve resource mobilisation by strengthening tax collection machinery and ensuring effective fiscal discipline.
Initiating the debate, ND Tiwari (Cong) said the Finance Bill was a presentation of misleading statistical data based only on imagination without any reflection of realism, pragmatism and people-oriented measures.
Inflationary tendency was persisting, while Sensex remained volatile despite improvements in share markets world over, he said, adding high debt burden and difficult interest payment position called for strict fiscal discipline.Claiming that various schemes like "Annapurna" and "Swarn Jayanti Awas Yojana" remained only on paper, he said instead of being obsessed with share market and sensex, the government should shape its policies and programmes to benefit the poor and needy.
Tiwari said government should simplify service tax system through development of proper software, besides strengthening the machinery for collection of direct and indirect taxes.
Referring to the government's promise to provide one crore jobs annually, he sought to know how many have actually been provided employment.
Vaiko (MDMK) praised the Finance Bill commending the steps taken by government to boost industry, particularly the information technology sector. He said India will soon become the super-economic power of the world.
Roopchand Pal (CPI-M) said there was "very little" modification in the direct tax structure and demanded to know where the money will come from. He also said farmhouses around Delhi accounted for Rs 50,000 crore and most of them belonged to bureaucrats.
He said the present and the previous governments had not been able to check tax evasions on large scale. BB Ramaiah (TDP) sought tax concessions for small-scale industries as many of them were falling sick.
Kirit Somaiah (BJP) said income-tax exemptions being given to companies registered in Mauritius was started in 1983 during Congress rule.
Copyright © 2000 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.