Aspirational India

Under the project of Aspirational India, programs and schemes on agriculture and rural development, water and sanitation, and education and skills have been proposed. The economic surveys declare that, in India, the youth is in majority. But there is no provision in the budget that mentions the eradication of unemployment. Any scheme from the budget can be analysed but let us consider the important provisions mentioned above. According to Demand No 1 of statement 10 (a) & (b), for schemes ‘Interest Subsidy for Short Term Credit to Farmers’ and ‘Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-Kisan)’, fund worth rupees 3552.69 crore and 12,597.47 crores have been respectively allocated. And from Adivasi Budget, provisions of funds worth rupees 1557.55 and 6598.67 crores have been made. But the nature of both these schemes is very rudimentary, general flow schemes. Through this, it is not necessary that dalits, adivasis farmers will be benefited.

For water and sanitation, from dalit budget Rs. 4728 Crores and from adivasis Rs 2129 crores have been allocated under two schemes such as Swaccha Bharat Abhiyan and Jal Jivan Abhiyan. But those Sepoys who clean the dirt with their bare hands, have been allocated only Rs 110 crores for their rehabilitation, under SRMS. According to 2018 report of Dalberg Associates, there are 50 lakhs people in India who are engaged in manual scavenging. And as per the movement of Safai Karmachari, in 2019, more than 262 people have died in the gutter while cleaning it. Is it really Nirmal Budget?
The third and the last point in Aspirational India is education and skills. The budget provision of education has been reduced to 3.71% by the Modi government in 2017-18 from 6.15% in 2014-15 of total budget. In 2020, it is further reduced to 3.26%. It means that in the field of education, there is only a provision of Rs 99, 300 crores. For higher education, dalits and adivasis have only 4850/- crores in their share. On one hand, institutions like IITs and IIMs have been demanding the government to allow them to implement reservation policies as per their wish. But on the other hand, they are accepting Rs. 632 crores from the budget of dalit & adivasis. Some world-class institutions which so far exist only on paper were also allocated 83/- crores from the budget of dalits. Rs. 610 Crores from SC Component Plan and Rs. 263 Cr from ST Component Plan were also offered as gross budgetary support in which it has no connection with students and, scholarships are pending from the past 4 years.

Economic Development

Only 6 pages describe the economic development, in 70 pages of budget speech. From this, it appears that the Modi government has no vision, no creativity to achieve the goal of a USD 5 trillion economy. The budget speech, that lasted for more than two and a half hours, was repetitive and tiring. In this, the finance minister was stressing again and again on ‘Strategic Disinvestment’ for economic development. Disinvestment may be it strategic, is another way of saying “privatisation”.

In the name of a new economy, the government is attempting to sell all the companies from the public sector which were essentially built by using the land, water, oil and mineral from this country. To see this from the economic perspective, it seems that the government has no knowledge/wisdom and creativity to get rid of the current economic slowdown. In Memorandum & Draft Articles on the rights of States and Minorities of 1947, Dr Ambedkar felt that it was imperative “to put an obligation on the state to plan the economic life of the people on lines which would lead to the highest point of productivity without closing every avenue to private enterprise, and also provide for the equitable distribution of wealth.” Privatisation of Public Sector Units would further lead to economic inequality, as already economic is inequality higher as per the reports published by Oxfam.

The SC/ST Component plans were started to make avail the opportunities of economic development to dalits and adivasis & reduce inequalities. Modi 2.0 has proposed this second budget. Like the last 6 Budgets, this time too dalits and adivasis have no deserving share in it. The needed ministries/ departments must reserve the fund for CS (Central Sector Schemes) and CSS (Centrally Sponsored Schemes) after the merger of Plan & Non-Plan budget as per notification of Finance Department. Accordingly, dalits and adivasis are eligible for (CS+CSS) schemes worth Rs 8,98,430 Crores and Rs 8,95,043 Crores respectively. As per the notifications of the finance ministry and NITI Aayog, the SC/ST Component Scheme should at least meet the 16.5% and 9% provisions of eligible schemes; this means that Rs. 1,48,240.95 Crores for dalits and Rs. 80,858.70 Crores for adivasis. But in reality, only Rs. 83,257- Crores of dalits and Rs. 53653 Crores of adivasis have been allocated.

Caring Society…

Women too seem to have no important place in the provisions made for economic development. Only Rs. 1,42,813 Crores have been allocated for women out of total expenditure budget of Rs. 30,42,230 crores, only 4.6% share. And within the gender budget, the allocation for dalit/adivasi women is less than 2%. Under the SC/ST Component Schemes, for dalit and adivasi women, the allocation is merely Rs. 7986 Crores and Rs. 3175 Crores.

In the budget, provisions for only 1743.38/- crores have been made for OBCs, especially in the government in which the Prime Minister claims to be an OBC. The Idate Commission formed by Modi Government and other commissions recommended the inclusion of component schemes for NT-DNT, but no such provisions are made. It seems, the New India advocated by RSS-BJP lead government does not want the participation of women, dalits, adivasis, backwards classes, and nomadic tribes of this country, nor New economy provides any respectable economic opportunities.

The story of denial continues in Modi government; this year too Rs. 64984/- crores of dalits and Rs. 27205/- of adivasis has been denied. To stop the diversion, denial and looting of the due share of dalits and adivasis, there should enactment on planning & implementation of SC-ST component schemes, which will make its implementation effective. People of this country are taking care of each other, as evident by ‘Shaheen Baghs’, across the country. The question is, Does the government taking care of society?

Adv. Priyadarshi Telang
Spokeperson, Vanchit Bhahujan Aaghadi