New Delhi, Feb 11 (Representative) Claiming that the Modi government’s delivery mechanism in the last 10 years has been both slow and inconsistent, Rajya Sabha member Kapil Sibal on Tuesday said that India needs to achieve a grow rate of 8% annually. Slamming the Union Budget, Sibal suggested that the allocation for the education and health sectors is insufficient. He also termed the government’s target of making India a 5 trillion dollar economy as misleading. “When new government comes to power naturally people of India expect that government will give us a vision of what it intends to do in next five years. This government already had 10 years and the delivery mechanism has been both slow and inconsistent,” Sibal said while participating in the discussion on Budget 2025-26.Targeting the government, he further said, “Every day we talk about India becoming 5 trillion dollar economy, it will happen soon, it will happen in 2024 and now they (government) are saying it won’t happen till 2027. But what does 5 trillion dollar economy mean? This is very misleading. India will become 5 trillion dollar economy in any case. And I assure the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman that even if she does nothing this country will grow at 6%. It will grow at 6% even if she does nothing,” the senior politician said.Sibal stated that the country has been growing at 6.3%, 6.7% and it will continue to grow but it needs to clock a growth rate of 8%. “What we need is double digit growth.
What is the vision of this government to attain double-digit growth and attain 8% growth?” he asked.Moreover, Trinamool Congress MP Saket Gokhale criticised the state of the economy and said that the economy’s foundations have been weakened from within, much like termite-infested walls. While the Finance Minister has attempted to mask the damage with 27 layers of paint, this cosmetic approach cannot prevent its eventual collapse.Presenting his budget speech as a chargesheet against the government, Gokhale asserted that due to demonetisation, GST, Covid lockdown, lockdown have severely impacted the country, shutting down opportunities for investment and employment. The government has increased capital expenditure by leveraging tax revenue, leading to the development of some infrastructure. However, the overall state of the economy has deteriorated. He also alleged that the Finance Minister announces new schemes in every budget while previous ones are forgotten. The Trinamool Congress MP further claimed that under the Paid Internship Scheme, last year’s budget promised internships for over 1.25 lakh youth, but the actual number did not exceed 10,000. Congress MP Chandrakant Handore, while delivering his maiden speech in the House, criticised the budget provisions for the welfare of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Other Backward Classes, calling them inadequate.Handore also demanded the enactment of a law to hold government officials accountable if funds allocated for the welfare of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes remain unutilised. He suggested that the law should include a provision for a minimum of three years of imprisonment in such cases. Nationalist Congress Party and former Union Minister Praful Patel, a member of the ruling coalition, while congratulating Finance Minister Sitharaman for presenting the budget for the eighth consecutive time, congratulated the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the transformative work of the government in the last ten years.