In the Rajya Sabha on Thursday, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) member Sanjay Singh attacked the government and claimed that the Center does not have money to waive the loans of farmers and students and to start the old pension system, but it waived loans of Rs 3,53,000 crore of 43 companies. Participating in the discussion in the Upper House on the Finance Bill 2024-25, the AAP member said that the government does not have money to control inflation, waive loans of students and farmers, restore the earlier system in place of Agniveer Yojana and re-implement the old pension scheme, but the government has money to give benefits to industrialists. Sanjay Singh said that the government does not have money for education, health, treatment but it has money to waive the loans of companies.

Loans worth more than Rs 3 lakh crore of companies waived off

Sanjay Singh said that 43 companies of the country owed Rs 5,44,000 crore to banks and out of that Rs 3,53,000 crore was waived off. Amidst the interruptions from the ruling party, he took the names of various companies and presented figures related to them. The Chair asked the AAP member to authenticate his figures. On this, Singh said that he is presenting the figures provided by the government. He said that the Congress-led government had given Rs 70,000 crore for the loan waiver of farmers during its tenure and this government gave five times that amount to these companies.

GST issue raised in the House

Participating in the discussion, DMK member Kanimazhi NVN Somu demanded the removal of 18 percent GST on health insurance premium and said that the government should recommend to the GST Council in this regard. YSR Congress member V Vijay Sai Reddy stressed the need to encourage stock market investors. He said that various rates related to the stock market have been increased which will discourage the middle class. Reddy mentioned the penalty levied by government banks for less than the prescribed amount in the savings account and said that in five years, government banks have earned more than Rs 8400 crore from this item. He said that this penalty has been taken from the poor and the common man. He demanded to stop this penalty and return the amount taken as penalty.

The government should fulfill the promises made to Odisha

Trinamool Congress's Dola Sen presented her point in Bengali language. She criticized the disinvestment of profit-making PSUs (Public Sector Undertakings). She demanded the government to give relief to workers, farmers and common people. BJD's Debashish Samantray said that the BJP had released two manifestos at the time of elections - one national and the other for Odisha. He said that the government should fulfill its promises made to Odisha. Criticising the Union Budget for the current fiscal, he said that it has failed to meet regional aspirations. He said that minerals are being taken from Odisha but what will happen to the state when the minerals are exhausted. He demanded withdrawal of 18 per cent GST on health insurance and said that this amount goes to the Centre.

Benefits extended to a few industrialists
RJD's Sanjay Yadav said that if the economic policies of this government in the last 10 years are analysed, it will be found that these are for the benefit of a few industrialists. He said that on the other hand, people of rural areas and farmers are becoming poorer and poorer, which is a failure of the government's economic policy. He said that the government has been completely ignored in the budget and neither any factory nor any new train has been announced for the state. He said that Bihar has the lowest NPA (non-performing asset) in banks but even then the number of Kisan Credit Cards is very low there. BRS member Ravichandra Vadiraju presented his views in Telugu.