Kolkata, Feb 1 (PTI) Principal Chief Advisor to West Bengal Chief Minister, Amit Mitra, on Saturday slammed the central government for placing a budget that he described as a "disaster" for the common people offering nothing for the youth, women and farmers.

The economist, who is a former finance minister of the state, referred to the budget allowing 100 per cent equity on FDI insurance and questioned whether there was any "conspiracy" behind it.

He further asked whether there was any "connection between someone in the Union government and the international lobby" pushing for this decision in the budget.

"Today's budget is a disaster for the common people. And there is a deep-rooted conspiracy as indicated by many experts today. There is nothing for the common people. For the youths, (there is) only unemployment). Nothing for women - only words. Nothing for the farmer expecting some homilies," Mitra said in a video message posted on the Facebook page of the Trinamool Congress.

He slammed the move to allow 100 per cent FDI in insurance, but not cutting the GST on insurance.

"It's a challenge to all public sector processes... LIC and a host of other insurance companies including Indian private companies. When our state asked for the GST on insurance including life insurance to be reduced from 18 per cent to zero because it is punishing people who are taking the insurance, the Central government did not allow it and postponed it.

He wondered whether it was a "conspiracy" that foreign direct investors come with 100 per cent equity but the GSt remains at 18 per cent for insurance for the common people. "Who gets the benefits from this?" he asked.

"Aside from that, we will come to the tax cut, so-called tax bonanza in a moment. It has cut everything, social services cut by 16 per cent, housing cut by 4.38 per cent, welfare and SC and ST cut by over three per cent. Then you come to social services and welfare for the common people cut by five per cent even food subsidy is cut by one per cent," he said.

He also questioned why the budget has nothing to address inflation, and feared that this would lead the Centre to borrow more to keep the fiscal deficit at 4.4 per cent and the country's debt would go up.

The economist questioned if raising the income tax threshold to Rs 12 lakh would really be helpful when inflation is high.

"Only eight crore people pay taxes. Even if some proportion of those people gain a little bit, it will get eaten up automatically by inflation. That means your real gain is zero. This is a very clever trick that the budget placed. I want to know what the budget has done to check inflation," Mitra said.

"The growth rate has been cut. The question is manufacturing is only 15 per cent of our GDP and the promise was to take it to 25 per cent. What is there in the budget that is going to take manufacturing to that 25 per cent target of Mr (Narendra) Modi? So, how will you get higher growth? Naturally, growth is tumbling and conservative in its expectations," he said. PTI SCH NN

Full foreign investment in insurance raises concerns over unchanged GST and wider fiscal, inflation and social-service impacts. Approval of full foreign investment in the insurance sector is criticised for permitting complete foreign equity while leaving insurance-related Goods and Services Tax unchanged, raising questions about who benefits. The piece links this decision to cuts in social services, housing and welfare allocations, concern over unchecked inflation and fiscal borrowing to meet deficit targets, and doubts that tax-threshold increases or current measures will materially boost real incomes or manufacturing growth.