Union Budget 2020: Kerala Finance Min Thomas Issac says Kerala suffered from Union Budget

A day after Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the Union Budget for the year 2020-21, Kerala Finance Minister TM Thomas Isaac said the State has suffered under the Union Budget 2020-21. 

While interacting with a news agency on Sunday, Issac said, "Kerala has suffered. Our t0ax share was Rs 17,800 crore last year and now it will be only Rs 15,000 crore, it is an absolute decline to the devolution to the state. Whatever apprehensions we had earlier about the Budget have now been realised in practice."

Adding further to his statement, the Alappuzha MLA stated that the Union Budget of 2020 showed that the Central Government has not learned anything from the mistakes it committed in the last year.

"The Budget of 2020-21 will be a repeat of the failure of the budget of 2019-20. The Finance Minister has not learned lessons from the past years' experience. Within four months of the presentation of the last budget, it had to be amended by three mini-budgets," Thomas Isaac said.

"The corporate tax revenue has seen a sharp decline and the further deductions given to companies in this budget will impact the collection in the coming year," he added. 

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The Union Budget speech

Sitharaman commenced the budget speech by stressing that this was a budget to boost the income and enhance purchasing power. She noted that the fundamentals of the economy were strong, inflation had been contained, banks had been cleaned up and formalization of the economy had taken place during the NDA government’s first term in office.

Moreover, she talked about the positive impact after the introduction of GST and paid homage to the late Arun Jaitley for his invaluable contribution.

Thereafter, she listed the success of government schemes such as PMAY, Ayushmann Bharat, financial inclusion, etc. After this, she dedicated her speech to elaborate on the three prominent themes of the budget- aspirational India, economic development and caring society.

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(With inputs from ANI)