Below we publish the reactions of some of the mass organisations on the union budget 2014-15.

All India Kisan Saba

The union budget of 2014 presented by the Narendra Modi led NDA government has reaffirmed its pro-corporate and anti-Farmer bias.  It aims to promote unbridled profiteering by foreign and domestic capital.  It has belied the hopes of the people and also gone back on the pre-election promises of Narendra Modi to control inflation, and make agriculture remunerative as well as an attractive proposition. All India Kisan Sabha condemns this pro-corporate budget and will organise the masses and peasantry against the harmful policies.

The budget drastically reduces Central Plan outlay in Agriculture and Allied Sectors as well as Rural Development and Social Services. Allocation for MGNREGS has remained almost unaltered and considering the inflation in real terms it has rather declined. The Modi government aims to bring about fiscal consolidation through the reduction of public expenditure rather than by generating more revenues by taxing the rich and corporate sector. Further the budget proposes to reduce direct taxes to benefit the rich.

The Modi government seems totally oblivious and clueless regarding the drastic deficiency in rainfall and fall in Kharif sowing as well as other possible adverse impacts of the El Nino effect. The budget has no proposals for confidence building measures like provision of free seeds, subsidised inputs, interest free loans etc. It merely proposes a “National Adaptation Fund” with an initial sum of merely Rs100 crore to meet the vagaries of climate change. Petroleum subsidies are proposed to be reduced further by Rs 22,054 crores and it will lead to further increases in irrigation and transportation costs for farmers. This will lead to spiralling prices and exposes the Modi government’s lack of imagination in tackling the double digit food inflation. The budget has no concrete proposals to control prices in the context of the deficient monsoon.

The Rs1000 crore provided for “Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojna” for assured irrigation is pittance and aimed at hoodwinking the farmers. Given that there are around 600 districts in the country it will boil down to merely Rs 1.66 crore per district which cannot practically assure irrigation to the entire district. This is making a mockery of the plight of the farmers in the rain-fed regions and arid dry-lands.

The idea of a National Market for Farm Produce is also infringing on the federal rights of the state and is a step towards centralisation. The government also envisages dilution of the state APMC Acts and facilitate unregulated access for private players and corporate to the agricultural markets on the pretext that they are restrictive and create barriers to free trade. Big cartels and traders will come into play and Farmers will be adversely affected.

On the issue of remunerative prices the government promise of fixing minimum support prices at least 50 percent above Cost of Production (C2+50%) has been conveniently set aside. Instead on the eve of the budget session, state governments have been ordered to stop providing production incentives and additional bonuses over and above the MSP. States have been threatened that Food Corporation of India will not procure from such states as bonuses are “market distorting”. Now the government claims that to mitigate the risk of price volatility for agriculture produce, a sum of Rs 500 crore will be provided for establishing a “Price Stabilization Fund”. The amount set aside will be unable to meet the price stabilisation requirement of even a single crop and is a gimmick.

There is nothing new in the proposed scheme to provide Soil Health Cards to all farmers. Soil Health Cards are already being issued in most states. Instead what was required is to have a National Soil Amelioration and Replenishment Programme providing free ameliorants like gypsum, dolomite, lime etc to farmers based on assessment of soil conditions and an encouragement for bio-fertilisers. The amount set aside for this scheme as well as Mobile Soil Testing Units is also too meagre.

Instead of scrapping the Nutrient Based Subsidy Regime in Fertilisers and reversing decontrol unfortunately the government has spoken of a New Urea Policy. This will only lead to increasing prices of urea bowing to the demands of the Fertiliser Lobby. Given that there is a meagre increase of Rs 5000 crores in subsidy in the context of rising international prices the farmers will have to pay higher prices as there is no control over prices. The reduction of subsidies for Potassic and Phosphatic fertilisers is likely to increase the prices of these fertilisers further.

On the issue of rural credit and credit for agriculture there is no effort to reduce the rate of interest. It has also not made any mandatory provision for ensuring that real farmers and not corporate agribusinesses are the beneficiaries of the increase in credit.

AIKS feels this budget will disincentivise agriculture and push farmers into further distress.

All India Agricultural Workers Union

The first budget of the Narendra Modi led BJP government confirms not only that there is no change in the policies between UPA-II and NDA but the NDA is more aggressive in making the poor pay for the failure of the rich to fuel growth in different sectors of the economy when it proposes a reduction of direct taxation by Rs 22000 crores and an increase in indirect taxes that are paid for by the poor by Rs 7502 crores. The central plan out lay in this budget for agriculture and allied activities is down by Rs 6026 crores from revised estimates for the year 2013-14, whereas for rural development it has been brought down from Rs 61,810 crores to Rs 7502 crores just by changing heads.  Domestic and foreign finance capital are given concessions to various capital intensive sectors leaving out the labour intensive sectors such as agriculture and rural development.

The AIAWU strongly condemns the government’s callous attitude towards transforming the MNREGA, the only legal entitlement for agricultural workers into a scheme, transforming a right into a mere dole-out which could be misused or diverted at will. Apart from an increase of only Rs 500 crores,  by manipulating the budgeting process, the government has reduced the central government’s answerability of the program to a mere grant in aid to the states. The placement of MNREGA under Major Budgetary Head numbered ‘3601’ from ‘2501’ reflects the changed priorities of the new government. All those placed under category of 2501 are anti poverty programs and all those considered under expenditure head 3601 are the grants in aid to states. This opens the doors for the centre to escape its responsibility for the Act, especially where possible misuse or diversion of these funds is concerned.

The MNREGA act stipulates that the budgetary provisions under the act should be earmarked in such a way that they can be devolved directly to the Panchayti Raj Institutions. Now the legal right that the rural poor are have been enjoying to date becomes a scheme or an entitlement that can be misused at will. A right is universal in nature whereas an entitlement is restricted.

While distributing the entitlements, the state governments exercise the jurisdiction as well as discretion which they failed to do in the case of MNREGA so far. Once the legal protection is removed for this program, it will be like any other scheme like Food for Work Program, or Employment Assurance Program, in whose implementation the agricultural workers do not play any role. Only after stark failure of such programs and their use value, the then government came around and accepted the need for a legal right and passed a law when the UPA-1 was under pressure from agricultural workers unions and the Left parties.

All India Democratic Women’s Association 

The Modi led BJP government’s first budget comes at a time when inflation and price rise has reached unimaginable proportions and the violence against women has been rising at an alarming rate.

In overall terms, the social sector expenditure has decreased from 10.8 percent in 2013-14 to 4.42 percent of the total budget in 2014-15. In terms of the percentage of the total planned expenditure it has come down from 26.7 percent in 2013-14 to 16.7 percent in 2014-15. Further the expenditure for the ministry of women and child development constitute just 1.1 percent of the total budget which is a decrease by 0.1% from 2013-2014. The total gender budget constitutes only 5.4 percent of the entire budget in 2014-15, which constitutes a 0.2 percent decrease from the last budget of 2013-14. Within this budget the allocation for the 100% women specific schemes has in fact come down by 9.8 percent.

Though there have been paltry increases in the schemes with 30 percent allocation for women, these increases are barely enough to take care of the rising prices. For example gender based allocations in education have gone up by 9.9 percent in Sarva Siksha Abhiyan, by 12.9 percent over last year’s budget for MNREGS and 14.9 percent for ICDS. But these small increases are not even enough to take care of the rising costs after inflation, leave alone expanding the schemes. In overall terms, they are not sufficient to implement the basic rights provided under the RTE and MNREGS Acts and the Supreme Court directives for universalising the ICDS.

Despite its much touted commitment to the security of women, the budget betrays little concern for the security of women. The WCD minister had stated that she was going to focus on the establishment of rape crisis centres throughout the country. But the total allocations for rape crisis centres has decreased from Rs 69.50 Cr to 47.20 Cr. At the same time the allocations to tackle domestic violence have been reduced from Rs 59.50 Cr to 42 Cr where as the scheme for hostels for working women does not get more than a paltry increase of Rs 10 Cr.  The scheme for assistance for shelter for single women gets a paltry Rs 18 Crores!

In terms of its commitment to the tackling malnutrition of women it is significant that the government makes virtually no commitment towards the implementation of the food security act. Rather the budget speech makes ominous noises that talk about taking a more targeted approach and restructuring the PDS system. 

Adivasi Adhikar Rashtriya Manch

The union budget 2014-15, has violated the Planning Commission guidelines to allocate Plan resources for the Tribal Sub Plan at least in proportion to the ST population which at present is taken as 8.2 per cent, which in any case is lower than the actual numbers. The budget should have allocated Rs 47,150 crores for the TSP from this small part (Rs 575000 crores) of total budgetary resources (Rs 1794892). But the allocation is less by Rs 14,763 crores, which is a shortfall of a whopping 31.3 per cent. In the face of this deprivation, the 100 crore “Van Bandhu Kalyan Yojana” is a cruel slap in the face of the tribal people.

The largest number of malnourished population particularly among women and children, the largest number of those deprived of education, the largest number of youth who require jobs, the largest number of farmers who require land and water development and extensions services are among the ST communities, the areas most deprived of minimum civic facilities and connectivity are tribal habitations.

This year too there is no improvement in the number of ministries and departments who are allocating funds for TSP. 43 Ministries and departments are in any case arbitrarily exempted. Of the remaining ministries and departments identified for allocations, about one third have made none at all. Clearly a legislative mechanism has to be set up to ensure that the Ministries are statutorily obliged to allocate funds.

Moreover such a mechanism is also required to monitor the funds utilisation. Studies have shown a disturbing trend of high levels of diversion from TSP funds away from tribal welfare and schemes for other totally unrelated purposes. In the name of divisible allocations such diversions are taking place. We strongly protest against this. 

 With the apprehension of drought conditions in certain parts of the country this year because of deficient monsoon, and the well known fact that over three-fourths of tribal farmers sow under rain fed conditions in Kharif, the government should have announced a massive increase in the provision of food and employment through the PDS and MNREGS to preempt and address the drought related distress. Far from this, the Economic Survey attacks both the PDS and MNREGS” and budgetary provisions for both have not been raised.

The AARM demands at least the full TSP allocation of Rs 47,150 crore rupees. It demands all Ministries and departments and all central welfare schemes be included for allocations to the TSP. AARM also demands the launch of a food for work type of programme for drought relief by fully implementing the food security Act with the rural employment guarantee Scheme without any restrictions on number of days or workers per household, at least till the next Kharif. We demand that all the processes for democratic consultation, assessment and consent for diversion of forest land and land acquisition be followed in letter and spirit as mandated by the constitution and the law.