Miser stroke

NDA's pro-poor budget offers little to the marginalised sections

When it comes to the poor and marginalised, Union Budget 2017-18 sets big targets, but shies away from loosening its purse strings

UNION FINANCE minister Arun Jaitley introduced the 2017-18 budget saying it will ensure that the fruits of growth reach “farmers, poor, scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, women and other vulnerable sections of the society”. But a closer look at the Union budget suggests otherwise.

Jaitley reiterated his government’s plan to double every farmer’s income in the next five years without spelling out a clear strategy to achieve the target. The budget also skipped the issue of farmer debt, which concerns more than half of the farm households in the country. The sector is in such a bad state that a farmer commits suicide every hour in the country, suggests recent National Crime Records Bureau data. Still, the government reduced the share of Union agriculture ministry in the gross domestic product (gdp) from the last year. Even the total budgetary estimates (BE) for the farm sector saw just six per cent increase from the last year’s revised estimates (RE).

The government’s flagship agriculture insurance scheme, Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana, received `9,000 crore, even though the government had to increase the scheme’s allocation to `13,240 crore in last year’s RE. The budget has also done nothing to push pulses and oilseeds cultivation. India imports 25 per cent of its pulses and 70 per cent of its edible oils.

No help for women, children

Talking about public health, Jaitley announced impressive targets to eliminate kala-azar and filariasis by 2017, leprosy by 2018, measles by 2020 and tuberculosis (TB) by 2025. The only problem, say experts, is that the targets are unrealistic. “Given the number of TB patients in the country and the government’s inability to supply medicines, the announcement

makes no sense,” says Indranil Mukhopadhyay, a research scientist with non-profit Public Health Foundation of India (phfi).

Jaitley promised to bring down the infant mortality rate (imr) to 28 in 2019 from 39 in 2014 and maternal mortality rate (mmr) to 100 by 2018-2020 from 167 in 2011-13. He, however, announced a 30 per cent cut in the budget from Reproductive and Child Health flexi-pool, under the National Health Mission, from last year.

The only women welfare scheme that received a substantial increase in the budgetary allocation was the Indira Gandhi Matritva Sahyog Yojna. Its allocation has been increased to `2,700 crore in 2017-18 (BE) from `400 crore in 2016-17 (BE). However, estimates of the Parliamentary standing committee on Food, Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution in 2012-13 suggest that the government will have to spend a much higher `12,512 crore per annum to cover the 25 million pregnant and lactating mothers in the country. The finance minister announced Mahila Shakti Kendras in the 1.4 million Anganwadi centres and the upgradation of the 150,000 health subcentres into health and wellness centres. “He made the announcements without any road map. Anganwadi workers are already overburdened. There is also a fear that the government will rename the health sub-centres into wellness centres after introducing yoga sessions,” says Annie Raja, general secretary, National Federation of Indian Women.

The budget also gave nutrition-related schemes a miss. This despite the fact that India is home to almost half of the world’s wasted children under the age of five, as per the 2015 Global Nutrition Report. The allocations for nutrition-related schemes increased from 13.6 per cent last year to 13.9 per cent of the total budget and its share in the gdp remained stagnant at 1.8 per cent in 201718. Allocation for the Rajiv Gandhi Scheme for Empowerment of Adolescent Girls, the only scheme to address the nutrition needs of the girl child, remained unchanged.

No respite for SC/STs

The budget is not likely to make things better for the scheduled caste (SC) and scheduled tribe (ST) communities in the coming year. The government’s decision to merge budgeted and non-budgeted expenditures

has reduced the amount available for the welfare of SC/ST. Preempting this, the government in August 2016 had asked all ministries/departments to follow the Jadhav Committee guidelines for SC/ST schemes. But even this did not help. “As per the Jadhav Committee guidelines, SCs received 4.62 per cent and STs received 2.32 per cent of the total budgetary allocations in 2016. This year, the allocation for SCs has reduced to 2.5 per cent and that for STs to 1.53 per cent,” says Paul Divakar, head of the National Campaign for Dalit Human Rights. The budget also reduced the number of schemes for SCs from 294 to 256 and for STs from 307 to 261.

Bad for climate

Just like the social welfare sectors, the finance minister gave environment and climate change a cold shoulder. A year after India’s economic survey estimated the total cost of implementing India’s Intended Nationally Determined Contributions at $2.5 trillion (at 2014-15 prices) by 2030, the budget 2017-18 announced no new schemes or significant increases in the allocations made towards the environment and combating climate change.

The total allocation was scaled up by around 19 per cent compared to last year’s allocation and by 15 per cent compared to the revised estimates. But this scale-up is deceptive as the increases have come entirely in revenue expenditure which accounts for salaries and other planned operations, whereas the capital expenditure has been scaled down by over 27 per cent to `40.03 crore compared to last year.

The big gainer among the central sector schemes related to the environment this year seems to be coastal management. Funds for the National Coastal Zone Management Programme, undertaken as an externally aided programme, have been nearly doubled to `441 crore this year.

One of the biggest losers remain climate-centric programmes. While the allocation to the Climate Change Action Plan increased from `30 crore last year to `40 crore this year, it is still around `100 crore short of the actual expenditure recorded in 2015-16. Overall, Jaitely has made tall promises without proper fund allocations. This will hurt the vulnerable communities the most.