The Finance Minister of India Arun Jaitley tabled the Budget of fiscal year 2016-17 in Parliament on Monday. Hazaribagh MP-cum-MoS Finance Jayant Sinha was sitting behind his senior while tabling of this Budget but everyone knows that he certainly would have contributed a lot in making of this Budget, so to know the response of people of Sinha’s home town The Pioneer took a glimpse of reactions of the denizens and the town.
Hazaribagh chamber of commerce welcomed the budget specially for giving stress on the development of agriculture and rural India. Chamber is not satisfied with the increase of excise duty on gold and other ornaments and according to the office bearers it will prove a hurdle for the industry. No change in tax slab is also a matter of concern for chamber and according to them it is not going to help the Government’s mission to dig out black money. This release has been issued with the signatures of President Rajendra lal, Secretary Raj Kumar Jain Tongya and Jt. Secretary Vijay Keshri.
College teacher Pramod Kumar Sinha, school teacher Sanjay Prasad, bank employee Birendra Kumar, clerk in a Government department Kundan Kumar, private sector staff Sanjeev Kumar, CCl employee Tarun Kumar and others who belongs to middle class of the society looked sad because no change in income tax slab has been made. They all said that though the FM and MoS is talking about indirect benefits but this budget is going to give some extra burden on us because of increase in service tax rate.
Political party leaders commented on this budget as per their party line. BJPs District President Tunnu Gope called it a historic budget in which first time stress has been given on agricultures and farmers. RJDs District President Bhuvaneshwar Patel, CPMs Ganesh Kumar, Congress’s Vijay Kumar Yadav and others flatly condemned the budget and said that the rate of inflation will go up in the days to come and almost all things will become costlier.
Women of Hazaribagh looked to be in wait and watch position. Sarita Devi of Hazaribagh town said that she would like to see the effect of this budget on her home budget then will make any comment. Urmila Devi of Devkuli village of Ichak block said that many announcements has been made for agriculture, peasants and rural areas and now we would like to see how much of these actually reaches to the ground level.