CPM dubs UPA’s aam aadmi slogan as deception

NEW DELHI: CPM has dubbed the UPA government’s aam aadmi slogan as “deception” saying it has grossly underestimated the Below Poverty Line (BPL) population and created greater avenues for profit maximisation at the cost of increasing burdens on the common man.

In an year end round-up, CPM said the quality of livelihood of the aam aadmi had declined due to rising food prices by 20% this year.

“The vast majority of Indians can expect an improvement in their livelihood in the coming year only if the government redoubles its efforts to mobilise resources for large public expenditures to combat poverty and unemployment. During the last fiscal, the government announced that it had foregone legitimate tax revenue to the tune of Rs 4.18 lakh crores. One way to begin the new year is to resolve not to repeat this and instead transfer this amount to public investments,” an editorial in the party mouthpiece People’s Democracy said.

It said the prime minister struck a defensive tone at the recent conference of the Indian Economic Association by stating that “the percentage of the population living below the poverty line has certainly not increased.”

The Suresh Tendulkar Committee has now put out an estimate that over 37% of Indians live in poverty as compared with the existing officially estimated 27.5%. Earlier, the National Commission on Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector estimated on the basis of consumer expenditure data that 78% of Indians are being forced to survive on less than Rs 20 a day.

Referring to the controversy on methodology adopted for poverty estimates, CPM said several state governments have challenged the central government’s figures of BPL “This has become significant since the budgetary allocations for rural development programmes and the supply of foodgrains to the states from the Centre are determined by these estimations. The UPA government’s commitment to the aam aadmi turned out to be more of a deception in the wake of gross underestimation of the BPL population,” the editorial said.

Alleging that the government had failed in arresting runaway inflation, it said much of this rise in prices can be attributed to speculative trading in these commodities.

It said prospects of a better livelihood for a vast majority of people will crucially depend on increased governmental outlays for poverty alleviation programmes, but this “appears remote given the large shortfalls in revenues.

During the first eight months of this fiscal year, indirect taxes under the three major heads — excise, customs and services — have yielded close to half the budgetary estimation. Similarly, the direct tax receipts have also been less than half of the budget estimate. It is unlikely that these shortfalls will be made up in the last quarter of this fiscal,” it said.