The trade unions on Thursday criticised the government for hiking the FDI limit in telecom, civil aviation and insurance sectors and not raising interest on small savings, even as it hailed measures on agriculture and rural sectors.

Opposing higher FDI cap in the three sectors, CPI(M)-backed CITU president M K Pandhe and Sangh Parivar-affiliated Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh president Hasu Bhai Bave said the move was "against the Common Minimum Programme and would result in handing over control to the multinationals."

"Higher FDI in telecom is against national interest, opening up of insurance sector has no social basis and more private capital in aviation does not have any economic justification," CPI leader and AITUC general secretary Gurudas Dasgupta told PTI.

The trade unions, however, lauded the government's focus on agriculture and initiatives in promoting rural economy, which is in line with the CMP.

The Budget announcement of divesting five per cent stake in NTPC also came under serious criticism from the trade unions with Dasgupta saying, "The entire trade union movement will oppose the divestment resolutely so that what begins as divestment may not finally end in privatisation."

The trade unions also flayed the finance minister for not addressing the demand for increasing interest rates on Special Deposit Scheme, which comprises 80 per cent of the Employees Provident Fund corpus.

"This will have a direct bearing on rate of interest on EPF, which is likely to go down affecting more than 3 crore (30 million) workers," BMS said in a statement.