NEW DELHI: Peoples’ movements across sectors came together to protest against the “undemocratic manner” in which the government was slashing social sector budgets. They questioned the right of the executive or individual ministries to cut the budget allocation “in a surreptitious manner” for any social sector without informing Parliament when the allocation itself was passed by Parliament after much public debate.
There have been reports in the media that the government is slashing social sector allocation, in some sectors like health, by as much as Rs 7,000 crore, to meet the fiscal deficit target for this year. In budgetary classification social sector usually refers to sectors pertaining to health, nutrition, drinking water, sanitation, housing, social security for unorganized workers and underprivileged and so on.
“If the decision on how much to allocate is done through Parliament, how can you decide on cuts without going to Parliament? They are completely bypassing Parlaiment and the people of this country. Thus it is an attack on democracy,” explained Prof. Jayati Ghosh of the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning (CESP), JNU.
“Let the government put its decision to cut allocation in the public domain and let the people discuss and decide. Already the allocation for social sectors in the current budget has been kept stagnant or been reduced. Considering inflation, if allocation has been kept stagnant it means it has reduced. The government talks about Swachh Bharat but cuts allocation for sanitation. It makes no sense,” said Nikhil Dey of Jan Awaaz.
Prabhat Patnaik, professor emeritus CESP, JNU pointed out how the allocation for NREGA in the current budget, Rs 34,000 crore, which seemed to be the same as last year was actually a huge slash in allocation. “Even last year’s allocation was falling short as the government owed Rs 9,000 in outstanding wages. So this year the allocation should have been Rs 43,000 crore to meet demands at the same level as last year, plus another Rs 9,000 core for the pending wages. Hence the allocation should have been Rs 52,000 crore or Rs 18,000 crore more than what has been allocated,” explained Prof Patnaik.
“The idea that we need to slash budgets to maintain fiscal deficit to attract foreign investment is totally misplaced. An unhealthy, desperately poor, underfed population can only lead to social unrest and that would not attract any foreign investment,” explained Prof Ghosh.
“We were told that growth is a good thing. We are supposed to have 5% growth much higher that in most parts of the world. But we still see negative growth in expenditure in health and education. Then who is the growth benefitting? What is the rationale of this growth?” asked Prof Pattnaik.
“The allocations are no favour to the people. Every rupee of allocation for the social sector, and for schemes like midday meal, has been won by the people through intense struggle. So how can you decide in one shot to cut crores?” asked Dipa Sinha, activist with the right to food campaign
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