The government has failed to deliver resources to warrant its rhetoric that the Budget serves the cause of the crisis- ridden peasantry, the working people and the poor, CPI(M) said in a scathing criticism, bringing the Congress-led coalition under renewed pressure.

"We will move amendments to the Budget. We want correctives to be carried out by the government," CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Sitaram Yechury said. He, however, did not specify in what manner they would move the amendments.

The party said Finance Minister P Chidambaram failed to seriously address the problems of unemployment and inflation and did not exploit the many opportunities for additional resource mobilisation, especially by taxing the rich whose income shares have increased.

"In the context of the inflationary crisis affecting the economy, Budget 2007-08 comes as a disappoitment...He has kept expenditure increases under a tight leash while restructuring it in a way that goes against the interest of the working people and the state governments," the Polit Bureau said.

There was no word in the budget on granting price support to farmers to prevent suicides, on employment generation and on implementation of "pro-people" commitments in the Common Minimum Programme, Yechury said.

"There are some references to the Left wish-list here and there, but these are not matched by adequate allocations," he added.

Observing that the government had become "a victim of fiscal fundamentalism", Yechury said the ruling coalition had "lost an opportunity" to uplift the poor at a time when the economic fundamentals were strong. "While the need of the hour was an extension of the public distribution and an enhancement of food subsidy, the actual increase in proposed outlays on food subsidy is just 6.2 per cent which actually implies a cut in real terms when inflation of 6-7 per cent is taken into account," CPI(M) said.

He said the expenditure on all rural employment schemes, including flagship schemes like the NREGS, SGRY and SGSY, put together is increased only by 3.5 per cent.

For implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in 200 districts, the allocation was Rs 11,300 crore, which had been hiked by only Rs 700 crore for an additional 130 districts, he pointed out.

When asked whether they would move cut motions, Yechury said his party wanted more allocation for several sectors and a cut motion was meant to slash allocations.

The party questioned the Finance Minister's assertion that the focus of this budget was agricultural sector, saying his claim was not justified in terms of the allocations.

"Central plan outlay on agriculture has hardly been increased as a proportion of GDP. Moreover, no effort has been made to provide price support to distressed farmers," it said.

While the agrarian crisis was likely to "deepen" in the coming months, the budget should have granted some immediate relief to farmers to prevent suicides. "There is not one word on price support," Yechury said.

The Polit Bureau demanded the Finance Minister to enhance plan outlay "substantially in order to meet the pro-people commitments of the CMP in areas like agriculture, education, health, employment generation, rural development and public distribution system". Speaking in similar vein, CPI said the Budget failed on several counts like making growth inclusive, addressing the issue of farmers' distress and suicides and on additional revenue mobilisation.

"The money provided for the development of agricultural infrastructure is very inadequate... The allocations on health and education are far below the requirements and do not meet the CMP commitments of spending six per cent and two to three per cent of the GDP on education and health respectively," it observed.

The state of higher education will continue to be worse paving the way for further privatisation and commercialisation and invitation to foreign universities. "The Budget is very pedestrian and holds forth no perspective of growth with equity and social justice," it added.

The All India Forward Bloc described the Budget an "attempt to satiate the corporate houses and a cruel joke with the poor and the common man".

"The Finance Minister totally neglected the CMP commitments and did nothing to contain the inflation and to check the price rise. While millions of people are starving and committing suicides, the Finance Minister is talking about import of food items for cats and dogs," it said in a statement.