Describing the stimulus package announced by the Centre as a “gimmick”, the former Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy on Tuesday said that of the ₹5.6 lakh crore announced on May 13, the actual burden of the Union government was a mere ₹2,500 crore.
The rest of the expenditure is no more than normal expenditure that are in the form of capital expenditure, said Mr. Kumaraswamy at a press meet. “What the country now needs is relief expenditure to save lives. There are many false claims. Even lay person can understand the foolishness of the announcements made to provide stimulus to MSME sector,” he added. The economic recovery will take a long time with this such a paltry sum, said the former Chief Minister. “There is complete opaqueness in decisions taken by the Finance Minister. I’m not sure as to which experts are suggesting measures to manage the pandemic. The attention given to labourers, small vendors, MSME regarding payment of wages or even the opening of lockdown are not clear,” he told presspersons.
Mr. Kumaraswamy said that instead of providing relief to MSME sector, the government was projecting normal budgetary schemes of the banks as its own, and that the burden on stimulus will fall on the banks.
TDS ‘sin’
On the TDS refunds announced as stimulus, he said there was inordinate delay in releasing it. Further, he said that this was a “sin” as the cost of capital to business is about 13 % and the interest paid by Income Tax Department for the delay was only 4.5%.
The former Chief Minister also said that he had sought time from Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa to raise certain COVID 19- related issues with him.
