Just a day after the finance ministry set up a committee under Nandan Nilekani to look at ways to directly transfer cash subsidies on cooking fuels, a proposal for extending the scheme to all social sector projects came up at the Congress Party?s pre-Budget meeting with the finance minister here on Tuesday.
Other important suggestions made by the ruling party?s office-bearers at the meeting include a revamp of the rural employment guarantee scheme to ensure creation of more permanent assets and measures to curb food inflation, including a more stringent policy to prevent diversion of agricultural land for real estate projects. Most members said that personal income tax exemption limits should be raised to give relief to the lower middle class in the face of high food prices. Senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh has written to Pranab Mukherjee seeking I-T relief for Zaqat, a Muslim contribution to charity.
Maharashtra CM Prithviraj Chavan pitched for cash transfer under all social sector projects. With him, the idea of directly giving cash to BPL families instead of grain and other benefits in kind, finds a new champion after Bihar CM Nitish Kumar.
In all, 82 members of the Congress — office bearers, spokespersons, chairpersons of steering committees and co-ordination committees ? attended the meeting, which is an annual pre-Budget feature. While Chavan’s point was something that came out of the blue, most Congressmen expressed concern over price rise and the political cost of it.
Another suggestion to cut food inflation was to prevent the use of agricultural land for real estate development. A senior Congressman’s prescription to arrest this trend was to curb the discretionary powers of chief ministers to change land use policy. ?This will stop the shrinking of land available for agriculture and thereby help in better harvests,? said an office bearer of the party. Rights of tribals and a comprehensive policy for their proper rehabilitation was also demanded in case of displacement due to mining and other activities.
Congress MP Prabha Thakur demanded that rampant corruption in the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) needed to be curbed. ?At least 70% of the work done under MGNREGA should be of concrete construction of permanent nature,? she said.
Significantly, one of the few concrete tax suggestions made by the party appeared to be the extension of service tax to include higher judiciary. A gasp went through the crowd when a senior MP made the suggestion, but then, the UPA government at the receiving end of judicial stricture on several fronts might even view the suggestion with favour.
The finance minister thanked the members for their suggestions, and while not much was expected in terms of an assurance from him, the party seems to have made its stand on the economy clear, and more or less given a window to what lies ahead in the Budget.