BJP MLA and economist Ashok Kumar Lahiri on Wednesday questioned the veracity of claims made by Chandrima Bhattacharya, minister of state for finance with independent charge, in her budget proposals for 2025-26 that six proposed freight corridors, including one from Raghunathpur to Tajpur, would spur economic growth in the state.
In his 27-minute speech on the budget which had been tabled on February 12, the Balurghat MLA used several examples to stress that some of the tall claims made by Bhattacharya were vulnerable in the face of objective scrutiny.
“The minister announced several freight corridors in the budget, one of them connecting Raghunathpur and Tajpur.... I had been to Tajpur to have an idea of the proposed deep-seat port. I found nothing (of economic significance),” said Lahiri, a member of the Fifteenth Finance Commission.
“A deep-sea port may come up in Tajpur in future, but there are no such signs as of now,” he added before wondering about the rationale behind coming up with a projection that the Raghunathpur-to-Tajpur corridor would spur economic growth in Bengal.
Lahiri, who taught economics at the Delhi School of Economics and had served as the chief economic adviser to the government of India, wondered aloud about the dream that the Mamata Banerjee government had been weaving around the proposed Deocha-Pachami coal mine project in Birbhum district.
Repeating the claims of Bhattacharya, Mamata said in her address on the budget discussion in the Assembly that the mine, with coal reserves of about 1,240 million tonnes, would give a big push to the Bengal economy and end up creating more than 1 lakh direct and indirect employment opportunities.
“We are told that the mining of basalt has already begun at the project site.... But there is no clarity on the company which will be the partner of the government. Ordinary people and even MLAs do not know the source or quantum of capital needed for the mining project,” said Lahiri, who expressed the apprehension that the promises would remain only on paper.
Unlike most of his colleagues on the Opposition benches, Lahiri came prepared to drill holes into the claims in the budget. TMC MLAs, including Bhattacharya, listened to him with rapt attention.
An insider in the Trinamool Congress later told this correspondent that the renowned economist had been consistently embarrassing the ruling party, making “objective interventions” on the state budgets since his entry into the Assembly in 2021.
Lahiri rolled out numbers to establish his hypothesis that mismatches between revenue and expenditure projections in the budget speech, and revised estimates had become a tradition in Bengal. He has been arguing that the state government is consistently earning less than its target while spending more (on revenue account) than estimated in the budget arithmetic.
“In 2024-25, the finance minister had proposed to spend ₹845 crore in development schemes under the North Bengal Development Authority. The revised estimate shows a 40 per cent decline in spending,” he said.
However, the mismatch between budget estimates, and the revised and actuals is not unique to Bengal. Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman has also been failing consistently to realise the targets set in budget texts.
Probably aware that the treasury benches would fall back on the central mismatch, Lahiri said: “Targets can be missed in one or two years.... But if it becomes a regular affair, then, it is natural to ask whether the government is creating confusion.”
With Bhattacharya’s reply reserved for the final day of the budget discussion, the TMC fielded Jadavpur MLA Debabrata Majumder to speak after Lahiri.
“You are targeting the Bengal government for a revenue shortfall of about ₹8,000 crore.... Why are you silent on ₹1 lakh crore mismatch, in revenue receipts, between the budget and the revised estimate of 2024-25? (at the Centre),” asked the MLA, a chartered accountant.
“If you are pointing a finger at the state finance minister, then you must do the same at the Union finance minister,” he added.
Although several important issues come up during budget discussions in the Parliament and the Assemblies, scoring political points has become a priority over addressing the real economic woes in such discourses, said a professor of economics at a state university.
“Scoring political points has become a priority than addressing the real economic woes. Prime Minister Narendra Modi invoked former prime ministers Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi to claim that their governments had imposed heavy taxes on people’s earnings.... Is there a match between the two contexts?” he asked.
“But such comparisons, though they are wild, have become the norm in today’s political discourse,” he rued.
BJP protest
The BJP on Wednesday held protests against chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s remark in the Assembly that Mahakumbh had turned into a Mrityukumbh.
State BJP president Sukanta Majumdar took part in a march on MG Road near 6, Muralidhar Sen lane, where the state headquarters of the party is situated. A group of ABVP supporters agitated in front of the main gate of the Assembly.