12 Crore Jobs In NDA's 10-Year Rule, 2 Crore Jobs In UPA's 10 Years: FM Sitharaman In Lok Sabha

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday responding to queries on Budget 2024 in Lok Sabha took on the Opposition led by the INDIA bloc and said India created 12.5 crore jobs between 2014 to 2013 as against 2.9 crore during the UPA's 10 years citing the SBI research report released in July 2022. The FM said, "From 2017-18 to 2022-23, our employment figures have improved, I'll give you four indicators. Labour force participation has increased from 49.8 per cent in 2017-18 to 57.9 per cent in 2022-23. Women labour force participation has risen to 37 per cent in 2022-23 from 23 per cent. The unemployment rate has declined from 6 per cent in 2017-18 to 3.2 per cent in 2022-23. Youth unemployment has declined from 17.8 per cent to 10 per cent in 2022-23."

The FM countered Oppositions' claims of favouring few states and ignoring others and termed them "misleading." The Opposition's INDIA bloc frequently called Centre unfair and said several states were ignored in Budget 2024.

Nirmala Sitharaman was quick to clarify that no special favours have been extended to any state and asserted that it is impossible to name every state in the budget. The Opposition were pointing towards Bihar and Andhra Pradesh in the Budget 2024 and alleged that special favours were extended to Nitish's JD(U) and Chandrababu Naidu's TDP so that they can continue to support BJP in government formation at the Centre.
Nirmala Sitharaman highlighted previous budgets and said "2004-05 Budget did not take names of 17 states. I would like to ask UPA Government members, did money go to those 17 states. Did they stop it? If they did, they have every business to ask this. When it is them everything's alright but not for everybody else. 18 states were not named in 2005-06, 13 states in 2006-07, and 13 states were not named in 2008-09, 26 were not named in 2009-10 which means only 2 were named."

Nirmala Sitharaman also highlighted on the Union Budget of UT of J&K, asserting the government gave financial support of Rs 17,000 crore. The FM said, "we have provided substantial financial support of Rs 17,000 crore in the Union Budget of UT Jammu and Kashmir this year. It includes Rs 12,000 crore towards financing the cost of Jammu and Kashmir Police. That's the burden we want to take on our shoulders, so that Jammu and Kashmir has more flexibility to spend money on development activities."

The FM emphasised that the Narendra Modi government did not give lesser allocation to any specific sector compared to last year. She also spoke about the fiscal deficit and said, ""We are complying with fiscal deficit trajectory; will bring it down to below 4.5% by 2025-26."

She stated that budget allocation for department of agriculture and farmers' welfare increased to by Rs 1.23 lakh crore which is 5 times higher. "Budget allocation for department of agriculture and farmers' welfare was only Rs 21,934 crore in 2013-14. However, in 2024-25, it has increased to Rs 1.23 lakh crore. There is a five times increase. More than Rs 3.2 lakh crore have been disbursed to over 11 crore farmers under PM Kisan since the launch, added Sitharaman.

Sitharaman said in the education, employment, and skilling sector, Modi government allocated Rs 1.48 lakh crore more than last year. "In this sector 0.85 lakh crores what was allocated in 2013-14 whereas today is Rs 1.48 lakh crore, which is 23% more allocation even compared to last year. In 10 years Rs 0.85 lakh crore to Rs 1.48 lakh crore, said the FM.