Lok Sabha Debates Further Discussion On Union Budget 202122 (Discussion Not Concluded). on 10 February, 2021 Seventeenth Loksabha > Title: Further discussion on Union Budget 202122 (discussion not concluded). माननीयअध्यक्ष : आइटम नम्बर20, श्री शशि थरूर । DR. SHASHI THAROOR (THIRUVANANTHAPURAM): Hon. Speaker, Sir, thank you very much for giving me this opportunity to present my Party’s views on the Union Budget 202122, which was delivered by our hon. Finance Minister, Shrimati Nirmala Sitharaman Ji, last week. Respected Speaker, in her speech, she reminded us that these days cricket must be on many people’s mind. Hon. Speaker, Sir, perhaps, I should request you to put the House in order so that I can speak. माननीयअध्यक्ष : माननीय सदस्यगण, कृपया अपनीअपनी सीट पर विराज जाएं । DR. SHASHI THAROOR : Thank you, hon. Speaker, Sir. I was just saying that in her own speech, the hon. Finance Minister reminded us that these days cricket is very much on all of our minds. I am not referring unfortunately to the disappointing defeat in Chennai yesterday. But earlier, this year, we witnessed an Indian cricket miracle in Brisbane. In the face of impossible odds, with nine star members of the team absent or injured, with the bowling backbone of the team hobbled and unable to play, and the inspirational Captain absent, India pulled off one of the greatest of all cricketing victories. I was hoping, as the hon. Finance Minister herself suggested, for something similar from this year’s Budget. The impossible odds were there. The economy had been laid low ever since demonetisation and then shattered by the pandemic and the resultant lockdown. The star performers, like tourism and service industries were devastated. The backbone of the economy, agriculture and MSMEs, are both in crisis. But alas, there was no stirring fightback in the hon. Finance Minister’s speech, no come from behind victory for our economy. Instead of the focussed leadership we all expected from the Government, it became clear, listening to the hon. Finance Minister that here, alas, inspirational captaincy is wholly absent. Instead, we have had the usual combination of high rhetoric, grand ambition, exaggerated numbers, and unrealistic targets, all diluted with underwhelming allocations to crucial sectors. 17.53 hrs (Shri P.V. Midhun Reddy in the Chair) Our hon. Finance Minister neither played with a defensive bat nor hit the ball out of the park. Instead, alas, it seems she was comprehensively stumped or maybe she had just run out of ideas. Instead of the Brisbane heroics, we have just got a Chennai collapse. Through the course of the hon. Finance Minister’s address, we heard a lot of memorable quotes notably from Tagore, but as the great Gurudev himself said, “You cannot cross the sea merely by staring at the water,” which is perhaps a more apt way to describe this Government’s tepid Budget. Rather than help us cross the sea of challenges we currently faced, the reality sadly is that this Budget abdicates this Government’s responsibilities to the weakest in our society, the segments of our economy that are in tatters and the aam aadmi who have reposed their faith in this Government, have been let down totally in the last seven years. I can spend hours explaining why this is so. But given the limited time available to my Party, let me stick to a few examples and I pick four today where the Budget has betrayed the most fundamental expectations from the Nation health, fiscal stimulus, defence, and agriculture. First is health. Given the unexpected challenges we have collectively faced since last year, which have destroyed both lives and livelihoods, the people of our country expected revolutionary allocations for healthcare. While thanking the countless sacrifices of our healthcare warriors, our frontline workers, researchers and scientists, and doctors, we are now in a position where the light may finally be visible at the end of the tunnel, but the Budget has delivered a blow to our hopes of expanding and developing the healthcare ecosystem of our country. Sadly, the Government in its peculiar wisdom, has chosen the path of deception rather than mature governance. We all initially praised the hon. Finance Minister’s declaration of a 137 per cent increase in the healthcare Budget, which included big ticket schemes like the Pradhan Mantri Atmanirbhar Swasth Bharat Yojana of Rs. 64,000 crore and a total o