Cong slams Modi govt over income inequality

New Delhi: Hitting out at the government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the Oxfam report, Congress on Monday alleged that the PM is making his friends rich and people are being weakened by unemployment and high taxes.

While addressing a Press conference, Congress spokesperson Gourav Vallabh said that income of 84 per cent of households in the country declined in 2021, but at the same time the number of Indian billionaires grew from 102 to 142.

Notably, an Oxfam report titled "Inequality Kills'', released on Sunday ahead of the World Economic Forum's Davos Agenda, said that in 2021, the collective wealth of India's 100 richest people hit a record high of Rs 57.3 lakh crore (USD 775 billion). In the same year, the share of the bottom 50 per cent of the population in national wealth was a mere six per cent.

"As per the Oxfam report, the income of 84 per cent of households in the country declined in 2021, but at the same time, the number of Indian billionaires grew from 102 to 142 (39 per cent growth). The richest 98 Indians own the same wealth as the bottom 55.2 crore Indians," Vallabh said.

"Continuous Increase in Indirect Taxes (GST) as a share of Central government, constant increase in additional tax imposed on fuel are responsible for this. Lowering of corporate taxes from 30 per cent to 22 per cent resulted in a loss of Rs 1.5 lakh crore, contributing to India's fiscal deficit. These trends show that the poor, marginalised, and the middle class paid high taxes despite going through the raging pandemic while the rich made more money," he said, adding that more than 4.6 crore Indians are estimated to have fallen into extreme poverty in 2020, nearly half of the global new poor according to the United Nations.

Citing the findings of the report, he said, "The national minimum wage has remained at 178 rupees a day since 2020, but Gautam Adani witnessed his net worth multiply by 8 times in one year (from USD 8.9 billion (Rs 65,860 crore) in 2020 to USD 50.5 billion (Rs 3.73 lakh crores in 2021."

"According to Forbes's real-time data, as of November 24 2021, Adani's net worth stands at USD 82.2 billion (Rs 6.08 lakh crore). At the same time, Mukesh Ambani's net worth doubled in 2021 to USD 85.5 billion (Rs 6.32 lakh crore) from USD 36.8 billion (Rs 2.72 lakh crore) in 2020," he said.

The Congress leader further alleged that when all this was happening, our healthcare budget saw a 10 per cent decline from RE (revised estimates) of 2020-21. "There was a 6 per cent cut in allocation for education, and budgetary allocation for social security schemes declined from 1.5 per cent of the total Union budget to 0.6 per cent," Vallabh said.