Terming the Union budget as disappointing, the All India Power Engineers’ Federation (AIPF) said it has taken care of corporate sector while interests of the working class and power sector have been ignored.
The AIPF said that despite the excess power generation capacity in the country, the budget is silent on government plans to provide power to all households in the country.
President of the Federation, Shailendra Dube said that despite excess power generation capacity, over 30 crore people were still deprived of power and the budget gives no indication towards addressing the anomaly. He said that the peak load demand in the country was 1.5 lakh MW while the total installed capacity for power generation was 2.8 lakh MW.
The AIPF president pointed out that there was no budgetary plan to provide cheaper power to all while ample power is available at Rs 2.50 – Rs 3.00 per unit in the energy exchange. He said that the name of Department of Disinvestment has been changed to Asset Management which is a mere eyewash and disinvestment of public sector units will happen at a much faster rate during the BJP regime.
Dube opined that it seeemd that the budget was drafted to facilitate corporate houses in the name of development. No change in energy policy of over dependence on private power generation companies has disappointed power employees.
He said no exemption has been given in IT slab to common people on the other hand budget proposes to increase additional indirect taxes up to Rs 20, 000 Cr which will ultimately burden the common man. Besides a tax holiday of 3 years to entrepreneurs in startup and lowering of corporate Income Tax to 25 % shows that the sole concern of the Union budget was to benefit the corporates at the cost of common man