Budget Neglects Rural Poor, MNREGA Allocations Slashed: AIAWU
THE central working committee of the All India Agricultural Workers Union has condemned the union budget for 2023-24 as anti-people as it fails to do anything about the huge problems of unemployment and hunger. This budget is a brazen attack on the livelihood of rural people as there is a decrease of 33 per cent in the allocation for MNREGA. This year it is only Rs 60,000 crore, while the revised estimate for 2023 was Rs 89,400 crore, up from the budget estimate of Rs 73,000 crore. Moreover the availability of working days under MNREGA was only 42 days, the lowest in recent times. The budgetary allocation ignores the findings of its own Economic Survey which establishes that the demand under MNREGA was still higher than the pre-pandemic period, pointing towards rural distress. Normally more than 20 per cent of the MNREGA budget goes towards clearing the arrears of the previous years. According to estimates, MNREGA needs a minimum budget of Rs 2.72 lakh crore to provide 100 days work. The allocation for Atmanirbhar Bharat Rojgar Yojna has also seen a cut from Rs 5,758 crore to Rs 2,273 crore. Overall the allocation for rural employment has seen no increase from last year as the government is refusing to accept the ground reality of high unemployment rate in rural India.
The budget will adversely impact food security as the budget for it has been reduced by 31 per cent in comparison to last year. The budget for food subsidy was Rs 2.87 lakh crore for the year 2022-23 which has been reduced to Rs 1.97 lakh crore this year. It means a cut of Rs 90,000 crore. The National Food Security Act's budgetary allocations for decentralised purchase of foodgrains have been cut from Rs 72,282.50 crore in RE (2022-23) to barely Rs 59,793 crore in this year's BE, a cut of about Rs 12,500 crore or 17 per cent. The allocation for food subsidy to Food Corporation of India has been cut from Rs 1,45,920 crore to Rs 1,37,207 crore. The public distribution system and food security spending are clearly intended to be reduced. This will further worsen the condition of people facing hunger, especially as the performance of India in the Global Hunger Index which has placed it at 107 out of 121 countries in the list, is worse.
Also the government failed to provide a house to everyone by 2022 as it promised but spent crores on its propaganda. It seems it is not serious about providing housing as there is an increase of only 3 per cent in the allocation for the Prime Minister Awas Yojna in caparison to revised estimate of FY 2022-23. Overall the rural poor have been neglected in the budget as the allocation for rural development has decreased from last year’s revised budget of Rs 1,81,121.80 crore to Rs 1,57,545 crore in this budget.
The allocation for subsidy on petroleum which includes the Ujjwala scheme has been reduced by 75 per cent which means people will have to face a price rise of petrol, diesel and cooking gas that will affect their food consumption sharply.
This budget fails to offer any solution to the crises in agriculture. The fertiliser subsidy is reduced by Rs 55,000 crore, which is 22 per cent. It will further increase the input costs of farmers for various crops. The allocation for the Pradhan Mantri Sinchai Yojna has been cut from Rs 12,954 crore in 2022-23 BE to Rs 10,787 crore in the present budget. The allocation for Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojna has been drastically cut from Rs 10,433 crore to Rs 7,150 crore and there is no increase in the allocation for the much-hyped Pradhan Mantra Kisan Samman Nidhi. It means this budget will not help the crisis-ridden agriculture sector which will also affect the agricultural workers and other rural poor.
The total budget for social justice and empowerment has seen a meagre increase of Rs 1,159.51 crore from Rs 11,687.51 crore to Rs 12,847.02 crore. This is not sufficient to meet the needs for ensuring any sort of social justice. The budget under the head of central sector schemes/projects is reduced from the revised budget of Rs 1,819.53 for year 2022-23 to Rs 976 crore for this year. This includes various fellowships and scholarships for dalits including the national fellowship for Scheduled Castes which has also seen a reduction in allocation from Rs 174 crore in 2022-23 to Rs 163 crore this year. In total, the SC budget is just 3.5 per cent compared to a population of 16 per cent, while the ST budget is only 2.7 per cent compared to a population of 8.6 per cent.
The policy approach of the central government for health and education is anti-people as Rs 9,255 crore of last year’s allocation for health remained unspent. Likewise, Rs 4,297 crore remained unspent in the education budget. The government is further depriving states of finance transfer as it went down by Rs 42,000 crore in the last two years which will have adverse impact on the welfare schemes run by the states themselves.
Despite the approaching elections, this budget does not address the basic needs of people. It seems that the continuing economic crises will have a bigger impact on the budget of the people of India as a whole, but the central government has continued its pro-rich neoliberal economic policies and has not proposed any hike in the corporate tax. The long awaited measures to check the huge economic inequality and disparity in India like wealth and inheritance tax do not find any place in the budget. Overall this entire budget will further push the lives of people to greater uncertainty. The CWC of AIAWU has called upon its units to organise protests against this anti-people and pro-corporate budget and to reach out to people at all levels, especially in village panchayats, localities, tehsils and districts.
