The Union budget 2023 was presented in a situation of rising unemployment and decreasing income for the majority of Indians. It was expected that the central government would attempt to redress these issues by generating jobs, enhancing the purchasing power of the people, and increasing domestic demand. However, the budget turned out to be a betrayal of popular expectations. BJP failed to keep true to any of their promises like ‘Housing for all’, ‘Double income for all farmers’, ‘5 trillion economy by 2024’ etc. Since there exists a huge discontent among the unemployed youth of the country regarding lack and subpar nature of jobs, the budget failed to address that as well. Superficially it seems as though the budget has provisions for women, Dalits, Adivasis, farmers, MSMEs etc. but it rings hollow as funds have not been allocated for the same.
Allocations for all social welfare schemes in the aftermath of the pandemic have either been slashed or scrapped altogether. Subsidies on food have been reduced to less than the allocation/estimate from the last two years. Cardholders under the National Food Security Act used to get a bonus 5 kg ration every month that has been scrapped. The subsidy of Rs. 72,283 crores has been reduced to Rs. 59,973 crore for this purpose. Subsidies on fertilisers and petroleum have reduced by 50,000 crores and 6,900 crores respectively. Subsidies directed towards nutrition, social security pension, and integrated child development services have all been reduced. The Kishan fund has been reduced from 68,000 crores to 60,000 crores. On gender-related issues, only 5% of the budget has been allocated. The SC/ST communities despite being 16% and 8.6% of the population, only 3.5% and 2.7% of the budget has been allocated for them respectively. In minority development projects only 810 crores have been allocated as compared to 1810 crores in the previous budget.
Despite sky-rocketing unemployment, allocation for MGNREGA has been slashed by 33%. In rural areas people are in dire need of jobs. The allocation was Rs 1.11 lakh crores in 2020-21, now it has been halved almost. For rural development only 5% of the budget has been set aside showing their apathy towards it.
Despite rising cost of commodities, there has been no respite in taxes for the people. Even the middle-class expecting to be relieved by some tax exemption, received nothing. Only for new taxpayers, some limited tax exemption opportunities have been created. All taxpayers would be exempted if they have an income of less than 5 lakhs though this is not too useful for the middle class. On top of that, the salaried section would have to pay for provident fund, home loans, or life insurance premiums without any kind of exemption under the new scheme.
Total allocation in healthcare has also been slashed. A total of 86,175 crores have been allocated for Health and Family Welfare which is an increase by 3.82% prima facie but it is actually a decrease if inflation is taken into account. In December, 2022 the inflation was 5.5% hence it would be false to say that allocation towards health has increased. Budget for the National Health Mission has been reduced to 36.785 crores from 37,165 crores. Public health insurance scheme ‘Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana’ was allotted 10,000 crores last year, this year it is 3,365 crores. Will this translate into the current insurances becoming defunct?
Finance minister announced a plan to establish 157 new nursing colleges. Whether this will lead to filling vacancies in rural areas is still doubtful since setting up new medical colleges has not managed to fill up doctors’ posts in rural health centres in the past. The FM spoke about R&D in medicine but no specific fund was allocated for it. The compulsory 80-85% dependence on imports and the rising import cost of 63,200 crores for medical equipment have not been addressed. On a whole this government that propagates the idea of ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ has no intention of attaining the goal of spending 2.5% of the GDP on health by 2025.
The overall budget may amount to 45 lakh crore of which 10.8 lakh crores are being spent on merely payment of interests of previous loans. This makes it even more difficult to procure newer loans for public spending. Important issues like reduction of economic inequality, increasing public spending on government schemes, job creation, and relief from rising prices were ignored completely. Hence, the union budget 2023 is tantamount to a declaration by this Modi government that they can win elections even without making any effort to better the living conditions of the majority of the population.
On the Education Budget
The overall allocation towards education has increased but the target of spending 6% of the GDP towards education as advised by the NEP remains a distant dream. The current spending on education is around 0.37% of the GDP that is just marginally higher than the 2021-22 lowest point.. At the level of school education efforts like National Book Trust, Children’s Book Trust, emphasis on a National Digital Library, and recovery from pandemic-induced learning gap, have been announced albeit no fund has been set aside. However, the status of digital infrastructure in schools across states shows huge inequality. The percentage of schools having computer facility and internet connectivity at the all India level is 47.5% and 33.9% respectively. Rather than a vague mention of ‘digital classrooms’ emphasis could have been put on improving public school infrastructure. While around 26% of the school education budget has been allocated for Pradhan Mantri Schools for Rising India (PM SHRI) schools, Kendriya Vidyalaya and Navodaya Vidyalaya , they cater to only around 20 lakh students. Likewise the larger share of Department of Higher Education budget has been allocated for 23 Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs). For higher education the money allotted for universities is either limited or meagre. Tuition and hostel fee should have been exempted from income taxes. This would have helped to make education more accessible to students from economically backward families.
