It's a pro-people budget: RSS affiliates

Welcoming the budget for 2019-20, two affiliates of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) said it was pro-people and a step towards ensuring universal basic income.

"Finance Minister Piyush Goyal has enumerated many pro-workers measures already in place. Even though this is an interim budget, let the pro-worker vision form a part of the future road map for development," Bhartiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) national president Saji Narayanan said in a statement.

Rs 3,000 monthly pension proposed for unorganised sector workers with a monthly income of below Rs 15,000, is also a welcome move, the BMS said.

"TDS threshold on interests being enhanced from Rs 10,000 to Rs 40,000 is highly beneficial to those especially in old age, who mainly depend on saving deposits," he said.

The BMS also demanded that the income support of Rs 6,000 given to small and marginal farmers should also be extended to farm workers and landless labourers in the agriculture sector.

Echoing similar sentiments, Sangh-affiliated Swadeshi Jagran Manch (SJM) co-convener Ashwani Mahajan said this budget has something for everyone, be it farmers, middle class or workers. "It is actually a pro-people budget," he said.

Making a big populist push in its final budget before elections, the Narendra Modi-government Friday exempted people with an earning of up to Rs 5 lakh from payment of income tax, announced an annual cash dole-out of Rs 6,000 to small farmers and provided a monthly pension of Rs 3,000 to workers in the unorganised sector.

Converting what was supposed to be an interim budget or a vote on account into an almost full-fledged budget announcement in the Lok Sabha, Finance Minister Piyush Goyal proposed an array of incentives for both middle-class and farmers, whose disenchantment was said to have cost the BJP dearly in recent assembly elections.