Parliament last week completed the budgetary exercise for 2022-23 in the Lok Sabha when the House approved the Finance Bill, 2022, along with the Appropriation Bill, 2022, and voted in full the demands for grants of all Central Ministries.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had a heavy responsibility to discharge during the week, and this she did with ease and authority, replying to every point raised by the Opposition calmly.

In the Rajya Sabha too, the Finance Minister answered long debates on the Jammu and Kashmir Budget and Appropriation Bills on additional expenditure incurred by the Central Government in the past.

The Lok Sabha discussed the working of the Road Transport and Highways, Civil Aviation, Commerce and Industry, and Ports, Shipping and Waterways Ministries while approving their demands for grants.

The Rajya Sabha had a lengthy discussion on the Railways Ministry. The Budget discussions are normally no-holds-barred discussions where members in both Houses slip out of the budgetary proposals often and do not stop from making or answering political innuendo.

This leads to interruptions that require repeated attempts by the Chair to counsel peace and order. When it comes to really specific issues, and members present their and their parties’ views, a frequent tendency observed lately is that many members are making prepared speeches and reading from papers.

While this helps the members to complete their observations within time limits, it deprives the listeners of fully appreciating the stress the members are making on different issues. The members are no doubt trying to catch the attention of the Finance Minister, who they think can solve their States’ all problems, but their speeches make up a large part of the dull proceedings of the two Houses.

The Finance Minister was, however, always an alert participant of the debates and responded to the members whether they were just sentimental or plain factual in their speeches.

In the Upper House, on the first day itself, Sitharaman had the whole chamber listening to her when she said that she had personally seen to it that devolution of all Central funds to States was cleared by February-end.

She did not let any vague charges against the Modi Government go unanswered and said while the Congress-led UPA Government made no Defence purchases during its 10-year-rule, the Modi government had made remarkable achievements.

Mentioning how the Congress had ignored vital Defence purchases during its rule, she said “I want to tell that ten years of Indian defense history has recorded nil purchases. Sir, ten years were lost. After 2014, rapidly, we had to buy from a pin to aircraft, everything.”

She was similarly forthright and effective when she replied to the Finance Bill debate in the Lok Sabha at the end of the week and said the Government had not imposed fresh taxes but allocated a mega outlay for infrastructure development as that would speed up all-round economic activity.

As far as the issue of reducing corporate taxes was concerned, this had helped the Government, she said. In 2018-19, the corporate tax collection was about Rs 6.6 lakh crore.

Then Covid-19 happened. In spite of the tax reduction and Covid, the Government had collected corporate tax of Rs 7.3 lakh crore till a day earlier, she said.

Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari flooded the Lower House with data on new road constructions, while Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal emphatically showed how India had this year achieved exports totaling Rs 30 lakh crore, exclusive of the Services sector.

Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw told the Rajya Sabha that railways’ finances were sound and it was going in for numerous Vande Bharat high-speed trains. Speaker Om Birla suggested an all-party meeting when Lok Sabha members complained they were under constant pressure for recommending admissions to Kendriya Vidyalayas, and they had limited quotas for the purpose.

The Opposition had extensive participation in the debates and its main worries were about privatization in various sectors. As reports of the increase in petrol and diesel prices came, the Opposition staged a walk-out in the Lok Sabha, and forced adjournments in the Rajya Sabha, after Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu rejected notices to discuss the issue by suspending the listed business. His counsel was the issue could be raised during the Budget discussion.