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GOVT BLIND TO WHY MIGRANTS STILL STRANDED, SAYS CONG

KT NEWS SERVICE. Dated: 5/18/2020 12:00:59 AM

NEW DELHI, May 17: The Congress has regretted that no better arrangement has been still made to enable the migrant labourers reach home, asking the government to look at the shortcoming because of which more than 8 crore are still stranded.
Senior Congress leader Anand Sharma on Sunday told a video-conferenced press conference that Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharam is burdening everyone from the farmer to the street vendor with loans, wondering whether she knows the meaning of the financial package or stimulus, while Congress chief spokesman Randeep Singh Surjewala said the needy got only thirteen zeroes 0000000000000 instead the Rs 20 lakh crore package promised by the Prime Minister on Tuesday.
It became quite clear after her fifth press conference that the government has no thinking on how to bring the Indian economy back on the rails, Anand Sharma said asserting that the self-reliant bharat packages declared by them are worth Rs 3.22 lakh crore and not Rs 20 lakh crore and it is only 1.6% of India'ss GDP and not 10% as claimed by Narendra Modi. He challenged both PM and the finance minister to disprove him on numbers.
Sharma said the Congress had welcomed the Rs 20 lakh relief package announced by the PM on Tuesday for encouragement to those hit by the coronavirus and lockdowns, but what the finance minister doled out is only loans that cannot be accepted as any economic package as the government wants the victims to earn and repay the loans for the economic revival instead of extending a helping hand.
The package announced by her is "anti-poor, anti-farmer, anti-labour, anti-shopkeeper, anti-salaried class, anti-MSMEs & anti-India," Surjewala said stressing that "India gets trickery, fakery, quackery" while senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh tweeted that bogus claims by PM exposed as so far loan and liquidity totals Rs 16.6 lakh crore and subsidy Rs 3.2 lakh crore, stressing that these include old announcements and programmes and "if there was a fraudulent package, this is one."
Anand Sharma said the government is misleading the people in the name of economic package and instead announcing just loans that the beneficiary will have to repay with interest. He also slammed Sitharaman for her comments on the Congress and calling Rahul Gandhi's interaction with the migrant workers in Delhi as "drama." "We expect seriousness, gravitas from the finance minister but what she said against Congress is frivolous."
He flayed the Finance Minister for talking of ration to the migrant labourers, saying it is not a favour but their right. He said crores lost jobs during the corona pandemic, factories were closed and what the MSME got is burden of another load of loans dished out to them instead of a financial help to enable them to pay wages to their workers.
Sharma asked the government to apologise for abandoning its poor citizens and violating their fundamental and legal rights. The govt has o answer on plight of migrants forced to walk on roads due to lack of planning, he said, asserting that nobody would start walking for hundreds of kilometres if trains are available aplenty as the finance minister pretended.
He said she made so many announcement which have nothing to do with the poor, farmers, labourers and small MSMEs as they are seeking relief. They are all citizens of India and not in the need of any compassion (daya). He said many reforms have been announced but they are only to rail back the collapsing system and industries but nothing done for the needy.
"Until the poor and labourers get money directly in their hands, we do not accept the announcements as stimulus. Benefit to the farmers is not part of any package as it relates to the PM's announcement before the elections last year," he said.
On the monthly pension of Rs 500 to old women, he said only 21% women have the Jandhan accounts, he said money should have been given through MGNREGA to benefit more women.