BUDGET CURBS SOCIAL EXPENDITURE Modi and Jaitley have often deprecated “populism`` and spoken of the need for tough decisions and bitter pills .Indeed, any scheme which divert national resources towards upliftment of poor and downtrodden are christened as populism. Any paltry provision of relief to the poor are dubbed “unaffordable-welfarism``, squandering of public money on “and the cause of India’s-economic-crisis”. The corporate sector also tends to be hostile to social spending, if only because it means higher taxes, or higher interest rates, or fewer handouts (“incentives” as they are called) for business. In contrast, when enormous concessions are given to the rich and corporate sector is treated as affordable, ingredient of reform process and beneficial for economy by proponents of neo-liberalism. This has been reflected in Jaitly`s Budget too The total Plan expenditure in this budget is estimated at Rs 5.75 lakh crore compared to the budget estimate of 2013-14 of Rs 5.55 lakh crore. It means if inflation rate of 7 percent is taken in to consideration, there is a reduction of four per cent in real term .Hence, while many central schemes have been kept intact, the allocations to these schemes have either fallen or are stagnant. In the National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM), if the expenditure in 2013-14 was `2,371.30 crore, the budgeted allocation for 2014-15 is only marginally higher at Rs 2,486 crore. According to Finance Minister the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), a flagship programme of the previous government, will be retained but oriented to works that are more productive, asset-creating and substantially linked to agriculture. The Budget for the MGNREGA has risen by just Rs 364 crore from Rs 33,000 crore in 2013-14. In real terms, allowing for inflation, these represent declines in allocation. An increase in allocation for the MGNREGA was imperative given that large parts of India are facing the prospect of a severe drought. Under the MGNREGS there is an outstanding unpaid wage bill of about Rs 5,000 crores. Since this payment constitutes a right of the workers, the outlay on MGNREGS, strictly speaking, should have been put at Rs 43,000 crores, which is Rs 10,000 crores above last year’s level, if the same nominal outlay as last year was to be maintained, i.e. even without reckoning with inflation. In contrast, the Budget has made totally unproductive allocations, such as Rs 200 crore for a statue of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel in Gujarat.There is also a thin spread of scarce resources across a variety of schemes, with no associated statement on objectives or processes.
Posted on: Fri, 18 Jul 2014 17:41:47 +0000
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