Centre's relief measures disastrous: Siddaramaiah

Bengaluru: The Economical package announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is ‘disastrous’ and it is ‘non-existent’ in terms of benefits to poor migrants, labourers, contract employees and farmers said former chief minister Siddaramaiah.

After Sitharaman announced support measures for MSMEs, taking to Twitter Siddaramaiah wrote, “The first set of measures announced by @FinMinIndia @nsitharaman, after 8 PM speech by @narendramodi, is disastrous & non-existent in terms of benefits to poor migrants, labourers, contract employees, farmers, etc…”

“The contribution by the government for the schemes announced are mostly notional and less of actuals and the devil lies in the detail,” the Congress leader said in another tweet.

He further said, “The credit infusion to MSMEs may help them clear dues to vendors but it is doubtful if they shall utilise the credit available to pay their labourers & to prevent job cuts. @FinMinIndia should have taken measures to pay part of the salaries to the employees in MSMEs.”

Questioning the Centre on ‘ignoring the spending for boosting consumption’, Siddaramaiah said, “The government is interested in capital infusion in the form of credits but totally ignorant of the actual spending that needs to be done to boost consumption. How can credit be considered as government spending?”

“Will be looking forward to next set of measures & I hope it will be something to benefit the marginalised sections. Direct benefits to the poorest sections will help them survive this pandemic. COVID-19 fight should not be another perception battle but a real one,” he added in another tweet.