Former Bengal finance minister Amit Mitra on Saturday said the Union budget didn't offer anything for the common people, youths, women and farmers and the tax exemption would not help salaried people cushion the impact of inflation.

Mitra, principal chief advisor to chief minister Mamata Banerjee, criticised the Narendra Modi-led central government for doing little to handle increasing unemployment and raising the FDI limit to 100 per cent from 74 per cent for the insurance sector without withdrawing 18 per cent GST.

“This year's Union budget has cut everything. Social services (allocation) were cut by 16 per cent. Housing was cut by 4.38 per cent, welfare for SC/ST was cut by over three per cent. (Allocations for) social services and welfare, very important for common people, have been cut by five per cent, and food subsidy by one per cent,” said Mitra while explaining how reduced allocations for social welfare programmes would hurt the common people.

Mitra said the rate of unemployed youths in the country was as high as 46 per cent and 30 per cent of them were graduates.

“According to CMIE, 37 million people were unemployed in December.... The question is what was there in the budget for the unemployed,” said Mitra.

CMIE or Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy is a leading business information company and works as an independent think tank.

Mitra's dig at joblessness comes a day after the Economic Survey 2024-25 claimed that there was a rise in employment and a decline in the unemployment rate in India. "The rise in self-employment is driving down the unemployment rate in the country," the survey said.

Coming down heavily on the announcement to raise the FDI limit for the insurance sector to 100 per cent from 74 per cent, Bengal's former finance minister said: “It (100 per cent FDI in insurance sector) means it is a challenge to the LIC and also a host of other public sector insurance companies as well Indian private sector companies. Questions can be raised as to why 100 per cent FDI was allowed without withdrawing 18 per cent GST on insurance. Who would benefit from it.”

Mitra also asked whether there was any conspiracy behind the decision for 100 per cent FDI in insurance. He wondered if the decision had any link with anyone in the central government and the international insurance lobby.

The principal chief advisor to the chief minister said the Bengal government was demanding that the GST on life insurance be brought down to zero from the existing 18 per cent as it was punishing people who preferred insurance.

“But they (Centre) delayed it.... Now, foreign direct investors come in with 100 per cent equity, but the GST remains at 18 per cent. Who benefits from it?” he asked.

He said as there was no sign of the growth of the manufacturing sector, it had left an impact on the growth rate.

“Manufacturing is only 15 per cent of our GDP. The promise was to take it to 25 per cent. What is there in the budget that could take the manufacturing to the 25 per cent target of Mr Modi? So, how will you achieve higher growth? Naturally, growth is tumbling and conservative in its expectations,” said Mitra.

Mitra also said the new tax exemption limit would not help the salaried employees at all and questioned the lack of a roadmap in the budget to control rising prices.

“Taxes from the ₹7 lakh threshold have been raised to ₹12 lakh. So those who earn at ₹12 lakh level will not pay taxes, but remember inflation is rising and there is nothing in the budget to control inflation. So, whatever benefit would be gained, it would be eaten up by raging inflation,” said Mitra, adding that it was also not going to give benefit to a large number of people as only eight crore people paid taxes.

Mitra said the country's debt would keep growing as the Centre would borrow a huge amount to keep the fiscal deficit at 4.4 per cent.

“To keep the fiscal deficit at 4.4 per cent, the central government is again going to borrow almost ₹15 lakh crore. So the debt of the country will keep going," said Mitra.