May God Bless India’s FM?
By Kaizen Krishna
04 March, 2010
The Verdict
It is passing time for the business tycoons, viz, the Birla’s, Ambani’s, Godrejs and Mittals of the country. This years budget has filled in a golden platter over Rs 5,00,000-crore to the corporate sector in the form of various sops, direct and indirect.
Veteran Congress leader and Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had thrown up another budget, ostensibly, one that is growth oriented and inclusive. If sugar coated speeches could be eaten by the barely clicked in the urban and rural areas in India, there will not be a hungry soul in the whole country!
The budget for the financial year, 2010-11 is meant for the well to do and the corporate sector, which is great alright, as the rich will become richer and the poor will end up as poorer. The middle class going to barely survive and as for the lower middle income group could always being to get a first hand feel of poor India, that made Mahatma Gandhi;s heart bleed and the already poor can go eat grass, because the government doesn’t care!
Meanwhile, it is passing time for the business tycoons, viz, the Birla’s, Ambani’s, Godrejs and Mittals of the country. This years budget has filled in a golden platter over Rs 5,00,000-crore to the corporate sector in the form of various sops, direct and indirect.
Pranabbabu has on the surface, given huge sups to agricultural sector.
If you go through the budget thoroughly, you will easily understand that the actual beneficiaries are the corporate and kill agricultural products. These corporate tycoons sell these products at very high prices, and the farmer and common man are at the receiving end. I mean, the farmer sells his products at a very low rate, much lesser than that of in the wholesale market. In fact, instead of buying the grains and vegetable items from these corporate shopping malls, you can buy at cheaper rates from the local vendors. Add to this, the planned cut in subsidies on food and fertilizers, which will break the back-bone of the already poor farmer, leading them to poverty and mass suicides.
About 70 per cent of the nation’s population is depending on agriculture for their livelihood. Some positive steps have been mentioned, like providing banking facilities by 2012 to centers with a population above 2000, which will promote financial inclusion along with a provision of agricultural credit. Needless to mention, even in this case the actual beneficiaries would be the ‘corporate farmers’, who have intelligent manpower to interrupt the law to suit their own needs and the poor farmer can never match up to!
The FM has drawn attention to the Central plan outlay and aggregate expenditures in two social sector areas, viz, education and health are projected to rise significantly. What he forget to mention was that it was at the cost of all other social sectors as non-plan expenditure on all the other sectors are slated to fall. No attention has been paid to the generation of employment opportunities.
There is some respite for the middle class. But the Income tax exemption limit should have been raised to 2.5 lakh alteast. Owing to the implementation of the recommendations of the 6th Pay Commission, many of those, earlier in the lower income level, may be included in the Rs 1.6 lakh bracket. Benefits have been offered to the income slab of Rs 5 lakh and above, while no benefits have been offered to those in the lower income groups, who have to grapple with rising prices. There is a proposal for the national social security fund for unorganized sector workers to be set up. The benefits of Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana are to be extended to all Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGS) beneficiaries. There is also the Mahila Kisan Sashaktikaran Pariyojana to meet the needs of women farmers. But the benefits of these schemes will reach the targeted people when the implementation is taken care of, for which no provisions have been made.
The FM has proposed to create a new apex body. The financial stability and Development Council, which will exercise macro prudential supervision over the economy including large conglomerates and will also be coordinated the functioning of multiple regulatory agencies like RBI, SEBI & IRDA.
Budget is a tool for social and economic development. It should reach out to the farther-most and inner-most corners of India. The purpose is self defeating if the citizen of India, at whom the whole exercise is targeted, are the ones who bear the burden. Budget is a vehicle for sustainable development and prosperity. In India, the majorities of the citizen is engaged in the agricultural sector and are living below the poverty line. The budget should be targeted at this ‘aam aadmi’ not just on paper, but also in spirit.
Kaizen Krishna is a post graduate in political science from Mumbai University and can be contacted at [email protected]
