Jaitley’s budget ‘a textbook exercise in post-truth’: Yechuri

Sitaram Yechury , Communist Party of India (Marxist), on Thursday said finance minister Arun Jaitley's 2018-19 budget was "unconnected to ground realities".

In his reaction to the Modi government's last full budget before the next Lok Sabha election, Yechury said it "is a textbook exercise in post-truth".

In his last full Budget speech finance minister Jaitley said India was poised to become a $5-trillion economy soon from $2.5 trillion now. His speech focused most on education, healthcare and agriculture.

"We are now a $ 2.5-trillion economy, and we are firmly on path to achieve 8 per cent plus growth soon," Jaitley said.

"We hope to grow at 7.2 per cent to 7.5 per cent in the second half of 2017-18," he added. "Rural infrastructure and livelihood expenditure will be Rs 14.34 lakh cr in 2018-19."

"From ease of doing business, our government has moved to ease of living for the poor and middle class," he said.

He said two new planning and architecture schools would be set up in IITs. The government would use technology to improve education "from "blackboard to digital board"'. It has allocated Rs1.38 lakh crore in FY19 for government health and education programmes.