Tax luxury not basic needs: Brinda Karat

Shashank Verma

New Delhi: CPI(M) Polit Bureau member and Rajya Sabha MP Brinda Karat feels that women are more affected by rising inflation. Speaking on ‘Zara Hatke’ from the series Bharat Bhagya Vidhata on Zee Media, she opined that inflation is mainly because of the wrong policies of the government. “Our country doesn’t lack resources; we have sufficient production in our country. More than one tonne of grains are rotting in our cold storages. This all is the result of system failure and strapped policies,” she said. Speaking to Ashutosh Rana, anchor of the show, Brinda said, “Our government is implementing a Food Security Bill for the same but unfortunately the bill has many flaws. This bill will have a negative impact in some areas.” “Food Security Bill was passed after lots of struggle, but there are loopholes in the bill. The clauses mentioned in the bill are not appropriate,” she explained to Rana. However, she defended the bill saying its funding was unnecessarily being made an issue. “All the levies given to India Inc through tax reliefs should be stopped and the money instead used to fund the pro poor programme,” she opined. “Government should direct its policies in the right direction. It should focus on production costs in India and not that of America. We have sufficient resources, what we lack is intension in our policies”, said Brinda. On the question on how change can be brought in such a scenario, Brinda said, “I am very optimistic about the future of India because I have witnessed a change in the awareness amongst women. They are now more inquisitive about country’s development. People are fighting for their rights and are uniting for the same.” “We have Essential Commodities Act which keeps check on black-marketing and other such corruption practices but it is seldom brought in use. Politicians don’t want to change the policies which favour their interest. We need to be well aware about all these laws and acts. To eliminate poverty we have to be as firm and determined as we were at the time of freedom struggle”, she added. On the view that tax policies are also responsible for inflation, Brinda responded with the view: “To meet its loss, government has put taxes on resources which are not suitable for tax implementation, like in the case of petrol and diesel. Even some states are putting taxes on some of the food items, which is totally erroneous. Luxurious need must come with taxes not the basic ones.”