A Tiresome Repetition of Boastful Claims

In the last three days, there has been a tiresome repetition of boastful claims by the government on how India has surged forward in the last 5/10 years. Before the Hon’ble President’s address, the Ministry of Finance put out a 63-page mini Economic Survey and, today, the Hon’ble Finance Minister (FM) gave a speech on the Interim Budget. Thus, the same numbers have been trotted out thrice in three days. Every number has been challenged by economists and domain experts.

The FM spoke about youth. She did not speak about unemployment. According to the PLFS (July 2022-June 2023) and the State of Working India Report, 2023, the unemployment rate among youth between the age of 15-29 years is 10% per cent (Rural 8.3, Urban 13.8). Among graduates under the age of 25 years, the unemployment rate is 42.3 per cent. Even when the graduates reach the age of 30-34 years, the unemployment rate is still 9.8 per cent. The FM did not acknowledge the rampant unemployment and did not utter a word on how the government intended to address the problem. By deliberate neglect over the last 10 years, the government has destroyed the demographic dividend story and dashed the hopes of millions of youth and their families.

The FM spoke about women. The topmost concerns of women are the rising crime against women and widespread unpaid employment. NCRB data shows that crimes against women arose by 4 per cent in 2022 compared to 2021. As regards women’s employment, the PLFS data show:

· Male casual workers earn 48 per cent more than women workers and male regular workers 24 per cent more than women. · Worker to population ratio for urban women is 21.9 per cent (against 69.4 per cent for men); · Labour Force Participation Rate among urban women is 24.0 per cent (against 73.8 per cent for men).

The FM spoke about farmers. Every farmer will tell you a story of how he/she is unhappy doing farming. The FM did not reveal the number of suicides among farmers including agricultural labour. The numbers in 2020, 2021 and 2022 are 10,600, 10,881, and 11,290 respectively. The wrath of the farmers was seen by the whole world when they protested against the three unjust farm laws passed without consulting them. The FM did not even acknowledge the causes for the plight of the farmers: rising input costs, insufficient and uncertain MSP, biased import and export policies, and crop insurance that is either absent or denied. Under the NDA’s 10 year rule, a happy farmer is an oxymoron.

The FM spoke about GDP, but she did not speak about the per capita income. She spoke about free grain to 80 crore persons, but she did not speak about India’s rank in the Global Hunger Index or to widespread malnutrition among children leading to a high proportion of stunting and wasting. She barely referred to inflation but she did not refer to the fact that food inflation, currently is 7.7 per cent; that real wages for casual workers have stagnated for four years; and the fact that there is an increase in the proportion of workers dependent on agriculture.

The boasts about establishing numerous educational institutions and AIIMS-like hospitals must be pitted against the facts that thousands of teaching posts are vacant in Central Universities and central government established institutions, especially posts reserved for SC, ST and OBC. The new hospitals do not have sufficient doctors, nurses and supporting medical staff or equipment.

The allocation in the 2024-25 Budget for health is 1.8 per cent and for education 2.5 per cent of total expenditure. None of the boasts can be accomplished with such low expenditure.

The FM spoke about minimum government and maximum governance. The ‘minimum’ government policy, in reality, has undermined federalism, starved state governments of funds and virtually reduced the third tier of governance   panchayats and municipalities   to ciphers. The overwhelming majority of the people are dependent on the third tier of government for their services but that tier have been virtually deprived of human and financial resources. Federalism has been considerably weakened by the central government taking over   rather usurping   the executive and legislative powers of state governments.

The fundamental flaw in the NDA’s approach to the economy and governance is that it is biased in favour of the rich. It is a government of the rich, by the rich and for the rich. The government is either ignorant or callous to the fact that the top 10 per cent owns 60 per cent of the nation’s wealth and earns 57 per cent of the national income and that income inequality has widened significantly in the last 10 years. This outcome is because of the lower growth rate during the 10-year period (2014 - 2024) as against the UPA period (2004-2014). In the last year of UPA, 2013-14, we left a GDP growth rate of 6.4 per cent and an average growth rate of 7.5 per cent. In the NDA period the average growth rate has been less than 6 per cent.

Since it is an interim budget, I shall say no more. However, the interim budget and what went before in the last 10 years have left us with a lot to talk about in the days ahead.

Based on Press Briefing on Budget on February 1, 2024 by the former Finance Minister, Shri P. Chidambaram, MP.