Food Security Bill and Land Acquisition Bill are two of the most important bills presented by this Govt (as they call it) and plenty of material have already been written on these in various editorials, blogs, facebook posts, tweets and where not. This post does not intend to be one of those posts expressing its opinion over these legislation. Through this article I want to bring light to another dimension of our society- The Taxpayer. The poor Taxpayer includes everyone who works hard for his living and is mired by TDS, VAT, Service tax, excise duty, customs and what not. He* pays for everything his fellow countrymen enjoys starting from security , roads, social facilities (surprisingly even after paying for these things since last 67 years these are missing from most parts of the country). Even after paying for so many things, he is one of the most neglected parts of our system (at least politically). Nobody talks about him. Nobody cares for his needs which are so simple that it can be described in one sentence “Value for money he is paying as taxes”. He need security for all, roads for all (he pays road tax), education for all (He pays education cess) and other basic needs. He is so generous that he wants facilities not for himself but for all. But what he gets, burden to feed 80 Crore fellow countrymen, burden to provide Air conditioned classes, horse riding lessons etc. to children of few people who have been marked as poor** (even when he can’t afford these facilities for his own child).
To put salt on his wounds, our politicians have showed us in last few days that what matters for them are poors and farmers (in one word votes) and nobody else, not the taxpayer at least. They can extend parliament sitting for FSB, not for Lokpal Bill. They will let FSB will get through even if some difference in opinion are present but will stall the proceedings on slightest of difference when it comes for GST. There are many(>10) draft bills which could help taxpayer in one way or the other, hanging in the web of standing committees and select committees of the parliament, but nobody cares as they will not bring votes. Its time for all of us taxpayers to do something that forces Govt. to listen to us and value our money.
*If you think that you are one of them than most probably you are
** one of the provisions of Right to education mandates that every school including luxury ones will have some % of seats reserved for poor children and Govt. will pay fee for them.
