Budget 2024: Nirmala Sitharaman has taken leaf out of Congress's Nyay Patra, says Jairam Ramesh
The Hindu
Congress on Budget 2024: Congress criticizes Finance Minister for internship scheme resembling their manifesto, calling it headline-grabbing with arbitrary targets.
The Congress on Tuesday, July 23, 2024, said Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has taken a leaf out of its 2024 Lok Sabha polls manifesto by announcing an internship programme but "in their trademark style", the scheme has been designed to "grab headlines with arbitrary targets" rather than a programmatic guarantee.
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In the Union Budget of 2024-25, Sitharaman announced that the government will launch a scheme to provide internship opportunities to 1 crore youth in 500 top companies over five years.
Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh said, "The Finance Minister has taken a leaf out of the INC's Nyay Patra 2024, with its internship program clearly modelled on the INC's proposed Apprenticeship Program that was called Pehli Naukri Pakki."
"However, in their trademark style, the scheme has been designed to grab headlines, with arbitrary targets (1 crore internships) rather than a programmatic guarantee for all diploma holders and graduates, like the Indian National Congress had envisioned," Mr. Ramesh said.
In another post, Mr. Ramesh said that after "ten years of denial -- where neither the non-biological PM nor his party's Lok Sabha Elections Manifesto would even mention jobs -- the Union Government seems to have finally come around to tacitly admitting that mass unemployment is a national crisis that requires urgent attention".
"It's far too late, and as it turns out, far too little - the Budget speech is more focused on posturing than action," he said.