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Business News/ Opinion / Online-views/  Social sector should get its due share in budget 2017
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Social sector should get its due share in budget 2017

Budget 2017 should be about making some actual commitment reflected in higher allocations towards the social sector

Adequate investments in MGNREGA and agriculture will be something that budget 2017 must put in place. Photo: MintPremium
Adequate investments in MGNREGA and agriculture will be something that budget 2017 must put in place. Photo: Mint

Every budget is important for the social sector as it fixes the allocations and direction of the various government schemes and programmes. The current budget follows the previous two budgets where the social sector has been largely neglected, with massive cuts in the allocations for a number of programmes. This has been justified on the grounds that the primary responsibility lies with the states, which should make adequate allocations from the additional funds they now have access to as a result of the increased share of revenue they are getting following the Fourteenth Finance Commission.

But there is some expectation that this time it may be different. Such an expectation has mainly been built by a number of ruling party leaders arguing that demonetisation will bring in additional revenue for the government (it’s now quite clear that it will not), which will be used for increasing expenditure on the poor. Further, given the hardships caused by demonetisation on people especially from rural, marginalized and poor communities, the government is also under pressure to do something to display its commitment to the poor.

Some indication to this effect was also there in the Prime Minister’s speech on New Year’s eve, when he announced the expansion of maternity entitlements of Rs6,000 for pregnant women from the current pilot in 53 districts to the entire country. This will require a budget of around Rs16,000 crore but the Press Information Bureau release indicates that only Rs4,000 crore will be allocated this year. Universal maternity entitlements (with the exclusion of those in government employment) are a commitment under the National Food Security Act (NFSA), 2013, and it is high time that it is implemented and adequate funds are made available for it. India has not met the Millennium Development Goals targets for infant and maternal mortality and it is imperative that along with maternity entitlements, serious attention is paid to comprehensive health and nutrition interventions.

ALSO READ: Renewed focus on maternal and child health a welcome first step

The health sector continues to be neglected with public spending in India amongst the lowest in the world (around 1% compared to a commitment of 2.5-3% by various government plans as well as political party manifestoes). Universal Health Coverage (UHC) is being narrowly interpreted to mean insurance coverage—of the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojna (RSBY) kind—which neither covers the entire population, nor all health conditions or all costs related to treatment. Given India’s double burden of communicable and non-communicable diseases, we cannot depend on insurance schemes. Rather the public provisioning of healthcare at all levels needs to be strengthened, with emphasis on prevention and treatment. It will be important to see not only how much this budget allocates for health but also in which direction it steers health provisions in this country. All indications now seem to show it’ ll only be an expansion of RSBY.

Just as in the case of health, the government seems to be withdrawing from direct provision in case of old age pensions as well. Murmurs doing the rounds of a chapter on universal basic income (UBI) in the Economic Survey and possible cash transfers of some form being introduced in the upcoming budget seem contradictory considering that social security pensions and maternity entitlements already exist in some piecemeal manner and can easily be expanded. Universal and unconditional cash transfers for pregnant and lactating women and social security pensions (old age, widow, disabled) have been a longstanding demand that have not been met due to lack of budget provisions. In this context, it is also significant that a recent report of a committee of the ministry of rural development on the SECC (socioeconomic caste census) has also recommended that pensions be delinked from the poverty line and all those who do not meet the exclusion criteria should be included in the beneficiary list (near-universalization).

ALSO READ: Centre plans to make Aadhaar mandatory for food subsidy

There are various signals of rural distress that need urgent attention. Adequate investments in Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and agriculture will be something that this budget must put in place.

There are a few issues that are relevant to all social sector programmes that need to be addressed soon. All cost norms (for e.g., for supplementary nutrition under Integrated Child Development Services as well as cash transfers (pensions, maternity entitlements, MGNREGA wages) must be inflation-indexed. The current practice is that these are updated once in 5-6 years, if at all. Secondly, the government in complete violation of Supreme Court orders is pushing states to make Aadhaar-based authentication mandatory. A number of news reports have shown how the authentication failure of UID is very high and this is serving as a mechanism of exclusion, and most often it is the most marginalized who are excluded. Hopefully, this budget will not be about Aadhaar and digitization alone, but make some actual commitment reflected in higher allocations towards the social sector.

Dipa Sinha is assistant professor at Ambedkar University, Delhi and an activist with the Right to Food Campaign.

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Published: 26 Jan 2017, 12:10 AM IST
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