“You Can’t Eat GDP” – said the great economist Simon Kuznets, who is supposed to be the Godfather of GDP. But the great Economists in the UPA – Dr.Manmohan Singh, Shri Pranab Mukherjee, Dr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia do not seem to realize that.

For example

* Education – To implement the Right to Education Act, everybody in the field of education knows that, for the State Governments it is mammoth task – The proposed allocation of Rs. 3,675 crores is pittance compared to the needs which, at conservative estimates, is Rs.12,500 crores that the State Governments require.

* Health – the proposed increase in the allocation to the Health sector is actually negative if one factors the inflation, population growth and the incremental broad basing of the schemes.

* Housing – Most Indians have to pay for and build their own houses – the increase in the price of cement and transportation costs is going to cause huge increases in the cost of construction with no relief in the interest rates for housing loans. The decision to impose Service Tax on Rents will also impact the majority who live in rented accommodation.

* Women and Child Development – What was required was the impetus to Self Help Groups and Rural Credit for women and increase in allocation to the ICDS programme – there is no mention in this budget

The Congress led UPA Government of Smt. Sonia Gandhi and Dr. Manmohan Singh has once again shown its callous attitude and gross insensitivity to the problems of the poor, the lower income groups among the salaried class and the agriculturist, who are bearing the burden of both the downturn in the economy and the sky-rocketing price rise.

Given the tragic situation of sustained price rise this Budget presented by Shri Pranab Mukherjee will further increase inflation – While prices of all the essential commodities like rice, wheat, sugar, edible oil and vegetables are bound to increase as a cascading effect of the increase in petroleum products, no concrete steps have been provided to address the issues of employment and supply side issues relating to these essential commodities.

The Congress Party’s arrogant approach to the economic issues facing the country has led to even some of their own allies coming out openly against them. They have so far failed to control the runaway price rise and they are unwilling to take the advice of the majority – this was evident in their attitude on the floors of both Houses of Parliament.

The tragedy for the people is that the Congress, which came to power on the backs of the “AAM AADMI”, will increase the hardships of the poor and the deprived through this budget.

The BJP and the NDA has decided to wage a relentless war against this artificial price increase, which is also a mega scam, both inside the Parliament and throughout the country in the days to come, to try and get relief to the common man, poor sections of the society and the farmer.

The Rail Minister while presenting the Rail Budget today made a mockery of sanctity of the Budget Process in the Lok Sabha, by both her style of presentation and content of her oral speech. The actual speech made deviated from the written text of the speech and she continued to make political statements throughout the speech. It was an insult to the dignity and sensibility of the August House.

Karnataka is the only state which has continuously contributed and committed a major portion of funds required for new lines and infrastructure of Rail projects from the State Budget. The Rail Minister has, while appreciating the action of the Government of Karnataka, has made negligible allocation towards these projects e.g. Bagalkot – Kuduchi ( 4 crores out of 816 crores), .

No allocation at all has been made by the UPA government in this budget for Tumkur – Davangere, Shimoga – Harihar, Talguppa – Honnavar, Gadag – Haveri, Bijapur – Shahbad, Dharwad – Belgaum all of which have been grandly announced by Kum. Mamata Banerjee. The Government of Karnataka was the first to propose the PPP model on many of these routes and there is still no clear direction from the Rail Ministry as to how they propose to participate in these projects.

Karnataka needs huge investments in the form of new Rail Lines and Infrastructure to provide the basic connectivity necessary for Industrialization and Passenger movement and amenities. These will have to be taken up on a rapid time-bound manner. This Rail Budget like all other previous UPA Rail Budgets continues to be an eyewash.

Bangalore Division continues to give the maximum growth in Passenger and Freight Revenues compared to the rest of India but has always received the least attention.

No mention has been made about the Circular Railway for Bangalore which is very badly needed to ease the traffic congestion and provide all round development of the City.

The proposal of converting Bangalore into a World Class Station has been announced, but no major improvement has been effected on the ground.

Even in the new trains introduced, the needs of the people of the state have been overlooked – there has been a long pending demand for direct trains from Bangalore to destinations North of New Delhi, such as Amritsar, Jammu Tawi, Dehradun, Chandigarh an Varanasi – a large number of people from these states are today settled in Bangalore.

Also while the Budget has made a mention of Karwar as a Port requiring connectivity, no concrete proposal has been made. Konkan Railways is struggling with an acute lack of funds and this budget has also neglected this crucial lifeline for the people of coastal Karnataka.

The seriousness of the Hon. Railway Minister towards the Budget Process was very evident when she herself admitted that a large number of the proposals that she is announcing, still need the approval of the Planning Commission. By this presentation she has made this year, she has thrown all Parliamentary norms to the winds.

An adequate railway network across the city and nodes at Kengeri, Krishnarajapuram, Yelahanka and Yeshwanthpur had already been developed. Lines had been electrified and at some stretches, they needed to be doubled.

The State Government had earlier commissioned a survey through RITES for the circular railway, and on its basis, the South Western Railway could plan the operation of passenger trains with stops at every two km Ananth Kumar suggested.

Experts say the proposed suburban railway service in the city will reduce road congestion by 40 per cent.

New Delhi: Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar’s admission in Parliament on Tuesday that a fair chunk of India’s stored foodgrains goes waste has sparked a controversy.
India is battling drought in certain parts and floods in some others. The disparate rainfall has brought a steep fall in the production and availability of food crops.
With such food grain availability scenario prevalent, the very possibility that India could be wasting over six lakh tonnes of stored food grains due to improper facilities is disturbing.
BJP leader Ananth Kumar raised the issue in Parliament on Tuesday. He said, “In recent years 1.83 tons of wheat, 3.95 lakh tons of rice, 22,000 tons of paddy and a huge no of tonnes of maize was wasted in the damaged in the various godowns of the Food Corporation of India (FCI).”
In an answer to this, the Agriculture Minister admitted, “You see, the total turnover of the FCI is close to 60,000 to 65, 000 crore. If you calculate the (.20 per cent) point twenty per cent of the total 65000 crore, then the amount will be somewhat close to that.”
The food crisis in India is severe for certain sections of society that battle poverty and malnutrition.
•    Seven per cent of India’s children under five are malnourished
•    52 per cent of India’s women are anaemic
•    India ranks a dismal 66 out of 88 countries on the world’s hunger index
•    That puts India even lower than the starved sub-Saharan Africa
•    Parts of central India, northern India and north eastern India are in the grips of a severe drought
•    The net sowing area of paddy is down by 50 per cent
With such a scenario, how big a part of the precious foodgrains is lost in storage and transit?
An RTI query forced the FCI to disclose that about six lakh tonnes of foodgrains damaged in transit and storage.
If the amount of food grains wasted was shocking, the matter of fact response from the Agriculture Minister was even more so.
Carefully coded, the minister perhaps implied that it was just .20 to .40 per cent of a turnover of 65,000 crore.
When represented in minuscule percentages, the huge figure seems small. But decode it and one realises that the same amount that was wasted could have fed 10 million people for almost one year.