Congress on Tuesday slammed the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Congress and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman for not mentioning funds for the decadal population census during her budget speech.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the union budget 2024 in the Parliament on Tuesday. Congress communications secretary Jairam Ramesh said the BJP is continuing to avoid caste census as it has not mentioned any funds for population census. “It is highly disappointing that the Finance Minister’s announcement on Data and Statistics makes no mention of releasing funds for the decadal population census that was supposed to have taken place in 2021, but has still not been conducted. This is the first time since Independence that the Government has failed to conduct a census on time,” Ramesh charged in a post on X.
The Congress leader charged the consequences of delaying the census was serious. “The consequences on the state's administrative capabilities are serious – one example being the 10-12 crore individuals who have been excluded from the ambit of the National Food Security Act. It also means that the government will likely continue to avoid a socio-economic caste census, despite calls from its own NDA partners for the same,” he said.
The Congress also charged the government’s internship programme for youth was actually ‘copied’ from Congress’s Lok Sabha poll manifesto Nyay Patra. In the Union Budget of 2024-25, Sitharaman announced that the government will launch a scheme to provide internship opportunities to 1 crore youth in 500 top companies over five years.
“The Finance Minister has taken a leaf out of the INC's Nyay Patra 2024, with its internship program clearly modelled on the INC's proposed Apprenticeship Program that was called ‘Pehli Naukri Pakki’. However, in their trademark style, the scheme has been designed to grab headlines, with arbitrary targets (1 crore internships) rather than a programmatic guarantee for all diploma holders and graduates, like the Indian National Congress had envisioned," Ramesh said.
