Just how the bogey of mounting deficit is being raised to reign in subsidy for the poor and even replace it with the direct-benefits transfer (DBT) while raising the subsidy for the corporate and non-corporate firms, bodies and high networth individuals (HNIs) has been exposed by The Hindu’s P Sainath in his article on Satuday.

Sainath says since 2005-06, the union government has written off Rs 31,11,000 crore (Rs 31.11 trillion) for the super rich by way of corporate tax, excise and customs duties since 2005-06. That is, Rs 70 lakh every single minute on average. (click to read his

).

Union finance minister P Chidambaram wrote off Rs 5,33.582 crore (Rs 5.33 trillion) for 2011-12, which additionally includes revenue foregone on personal income tax too (apart from corporate tax, excise and customs duties), according to the revenue foregone statement he presented with his budget this year. The budget also proposed a higher write off, Rs 5,73, 626 crore (Rs 5.73 trillion) for 2012-13.

Of this, Rs 61,765 crore of corporate tax was written off for 2011-12 and proposed to be written off another Rs 68,007 crore for 2012-13.

Sainath writes, One of the biggest write offs in this year’s budget is the customs duty on gold, diamonds and jewellery – Rs 61,035 crore. That’s more than what’s been written off on “crude oil and mineral oils”. Or even on “machinery”. The waiver on gold and diamonds in just the last 36 months is Rs 1.76 trillion (Rs 1,76,000 crore). (Or what we lost in the 2G scam)…”

Some food for thought for those who think sops for the poor is being “populist” but when it comes to the sops for the rich it is called “reformist”.