30 July 2024 Punjab Khabarnama : Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman will respond to concerns raised about the Union Budget 2024 in Lok Sabha on Tuesday, July 30. Nirmala Sitharaman will also reply to questions regarding the Finance Bill 2024 on August 7.
Discussions on the Union Budget and the budget of Jammu and Kashmir, are set to continue in both houses of Parliament.
In addition to addressing queries from the budget discussions, the agenda of the parliament includes Nirmala Sitharaman introducing The Jammu and Kashmir Appropriation (No. 3) Bill, 2024.
The bill seeks to authorise the payment and appropriation of certain sums from the Consolidated Fund of the Union territory of Jammu and Kashmir from 2024-25.
On Monday, Leader of Opposition, Rahul Gandhi, critiqued the budget for not addressing demonetisation, high taxation and also took a dig at the ‘halwa ceremony’ conducted by the finance minister.
He said, “The budget halwa is being distributed and in this picture not a single OBC officer is visible. Even a tribal officer and a Dalit officer are not visible. The country’s halwa is being distributed and they are not the only ones involved in it.”
Invoking the concept of ‘Chakravyuh’, the Congress MP said that the budget has contributed to the trap of youth facing unemployment, farmers in debt, middle class dealing with tax, MSMEs in tax terrorism, jawans under Agnipath and injustices against SC, ST, OBC and minority communities.
In a post on X he also criticised the lack of focus on education, “The Education budget, at 2.5% it is the lowest in 20 years and at a time when our students are suffering from widespread Paper Leaks, the FM did not deem it fit to even mention the crisis in her speech.”
This is Nirmala Sitharaman’s seventh year presenting the Union Budget. The budget session of Lok Sabha is set to conclude on August 12.