New Delhi, March 28
Congress president Rahul Gandhi today said the 'Nyay' scheme will remonetise what PM Narendra Modi demonetised and asserted that his party's anti-poverty programme has thrown the BJP into total disarray.
In an interview to PTI ahead of the 17th General Election beginning April 11, Gandhi said the 'Nyay' scheme had the twin objectives of giving money to the 20 per cent poorest families and remonetising the economy "damaged" by demonetisation.
"What the PM has done over the past five years is to remove all money from the economy with failed policies like demonetisation and a poorly executed Gabbar Singh Tax (GST). Informal sectors have been badly hit. The aim of the 'Nyay' scheme is two-fold. First is to guarantee a minimum income to the bottom 20 per cent families. The second is to remonetise the economy that has been demonetised by Modiji," Gandhi said.
The Congress chief said there was a reason why the party christened the scheme 'Nyay', which translates to justice in Hindi. "There is another aspect to calling the scheme 'Nyay'. Why have we chosen to call this scheme 'Justice'? Because over the last five years, Modi has simply snatched from poor and given nothing back.
“He has taken away from the farmers, he has snatched from the small and medium businesses, unemployed youth. He has extinguished the savings of mothers and sisters of this country. We want to return to India's deprived sections what Modiji has snatched from them,” Gandhi said. Terming 'Nyay' (Nyuntam Aay Yojana) a “game changer”, Gandhi said the scheme was “fiscally perfectly doable” and would not be implemented “rashly like demonetisation and GST”.
About apprehensions of some economists that 'Nyay', which entails an expenditure of Rs 3.6 lakh crore annually, could aggravate India's fiscal deficit position, Gandhi said: “No, that's not right.” He said the party consulted a large number of economists and experts, studied numerous papers and other research material on this subject and run an extensive financial modelling exercise before deciding to include the plan in its Lok Sabha manifesto.
To a question on the scheme being prima facie populist, Gandhi said: "It is not a populist measure as projected by some critics.” “If giving out Rs 3.5 lakh crore to 15 people by Modi is not considered populist, why should this be as it is aimed at benefitting the poor. Is it only the crony capitalist friends of Modi who are to benefit from government schemes? I'm only asking for fairness, for justice, or ‘nyay’ for India's poor. There’s nothing populist about that,” he countered. He said: “We're not rash. We don’t take steps like demonetisation and GST without consultations, without conferring with the experts. We have vetted this, tested this, and fiscally ‘Nyay’ as a scheme is doable.”
He did not give a timeline on when the party planned to make India poverty-free and said ‘Nyay’ would first be tested through a pilot to “smoothen out any flaws”. Asked if the pilot will be run in Congress-ruled states, he said: “This is for the experts to decide. In the 10 years of the Congress-UPA government, we took 14 crore people out of poverty net. Our goal now is to finish the job.” — PTI
‘3-year pass to new ventures, no angel tax’
- Rahul Gandhi said new ventures would not require any regulatory permissions for three years and would get easy access to bank credit if Congress was voted to power
- He also promised to remove the existing 'angel tax' imposed on start-ups. Angel tax is levied on investment in start-ups and currently charged at a maximum rate of 30%
- Gandhi said promoting domestic industry would be a key priority for the Congress and it would ensure that all new businesses were freed from the clutches of red tape to give a boost to the economy
from The Tribune https://ift.tt/2uylHgf
via Today’s News Headlines
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