Criticising Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s stimulus package, senior Congress leader and former Finance Minister P Chidambaram said the bottom half of the families in India, the most deserving that need the money desperately, have once again been left in the cold. He said the Centre stubbornly refuses to make a cash transfer to their accounts as recommended by dozens of economists, the Congress and other political parties. “I am sure they are watching the government’s pitiful efforts to revive the economy that will register a de-growth of 10 per cent in 2020-21,” the Rajya Sabha member said here on Tuesday.

He said the stimulus package was like the Hindi proverb Khoda Pahaad Nikla Chuha . “Loosely translated, it means ‘dig a mountain and find a mouse’,” he added.

‘Exaggeration’

Chidambaram said the grand announcement was no stimulus package to push economic growth, it was another sly attempt to dazzle the people with exaggerated numbers and lead them to believe that the government is hands-on and responsive to the needs of the people and the economy. “It is also a candid confession that the earlier so-called ‘₹20-lakh crore package’ was a massive failure. It was a failure because it was a hoax,” he charged.

Stating that retail inflation surged to 7.34 per cent, he said, nearly all of the rise in CPI inflation was due to a steep rise in the prices of vegetables that has hurt the home-maker the most. “The numbers claimed this time too are a hoax. The stimulus is not of a value of ₹73,000 crore. Nor is it of the value of ₹100,000 crore, another number that has been thrown at us. The fiscal impact of these announcements is estimated by analysts to be a mere 0.1 per cent of GDP,” he said.

He said he was amazed by the use of the term ‘demand infusion’. “I wonder if such a phrase exists,” he said, and explained that he has heard of demand generation, but not demand infusion.

Insignificant support

He said the ₹ 10,000 crore interest-free festival advance to government servants is not additional expenditure. “It will be recovered in 10 monthly instalment. It is like buying on equated monthly instalments. The ₹12,000 crore offered to the States is not a grant but a loan. All the big States put together will get ₹7,500 crore which is a minuscule fraction of the capital expenditure of ₹ 900,000 crore budgeted by the States for 2020-21. It will make little difference,” Chidambaram said.

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