Criticising the Finance Bill, senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor described it as “a classic case of patchwork solutions” when the Indian economy was facing serious “structural challenges”. He also flagged the issues raised by the southern states, saying they were fueling the economy but not receiving a fair share from the Centre in return.Initiating the debate in Lok Sabha, Tharoor said while growth targets were being scaled down, double digit growth seemed untenable and even growth rates of just above 6% were becoming a challenge. “At a time when the nation needs clarity, conviction and decisive leadership, the government’s economic management finds itself in the grasp of deep rooted structural challenges,” he said.
Tharoor said, “The portion of the population engaged in agriculture is higher than ever, while manufacturing has shrunk to around 15% of GDP, the lowest in this century.” Exports were stagnating and production was not going up and even those earning 5-6 times the per capita income were struggling to maintain their standard of living, he added.
He said individual taxpayers — the salaried middle class — were carrying the burden of a stagnating economy and paid more than corporate taxes last year. Tax revenues, he said, were still lagging despite the country having the highest GST slab of 28% in the world. He also said 35,000 wealthy Indians had left the country “complaining of tax terrorism”.