Who are you fooling?
Sinha's fraudulent concern for public health and the environment stand exposed as he goes on to deliberately undermine the Supreme Court's attempts to clean up Delhi's air. Just as his concern for lack of rural employment fails to go beyond the usual dose of words and meaningless sops

NEW DELHI March 1, 2002:
"We are aware of the sad plight of most of our towns and cities. This needs to be changed if they have to act as engines of growth, and if they are to provide a healthy environment for our citizens. Hence, we can no longer afford to delay reforms in this sector."
    -Yashwant Singh, Budget 2002-2003 Speech,
February 28, 2002


Heartening words, coming from the Indian Finance Minister. Unfortunately, Yashwant Sinha's budget does not reflect his concern. Far from it, it indicates that both public health and the environment are of low or no value to the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government, by discouraging the use of a clean fuel and actively encouraging the use of a carcinogen!

Sinha's budget increases the price of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG), and decreases the price of diesel despite the fact that particulates mostly from diesel fumes claim more than 5,00,000 additional lives globally every year. This comes as a slap in the face of the Supreme Court's efforts to promote the use of CNG in Delhi, to deal with the city's air pollution problem. It also contradicts Sinha's own professed concern for a 'healthy' urban environment.

An analysis of the NDA budgets over the last two years (2001-2202, and 2002-2003) clearly reveals that the party has a soft spot for the automobile industry, even if this partiality has serious health (and therefore economic) impacts on the nation. As in his 2001-2002 budget, Sinha once again provides massive excise concessions to private vehicles (excise on two-wheelers has been reduced to 16 per cent, while excise on cars has been reduced to 32 per cent). At a time when the road infrastructure in Indian cities is bursting at its seams and citizens are choking to death with pollution, the government is encouraging a rise in the number of private vehicles on the road. On the other hand, it does nothing to promote public transport.