Social sectors may get less from FM

For the first time in six years, allocation for the social sector is likely to be less than the proposed hike for plan expenditure for 2010-11, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Feb 16, 2010, 22:03:41 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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For the first time in six years, allocation for the social sector is likely to be less than the proposed hike for plan expenditure for 2010-11.

In the estimates finalised Finance ministry and Planning Commission, the major areas in social sector such as education, health, social justice and rural development are likely to get a 11 per increase in allocation over the financial year 2009-10.

The government has reportedly increased the gross budgetary support (GBS) for the next fiscal by 15 per cent, in a bid to rein in the fiscal deficit at below six per cent.

“The idea is to bring down the fiscal deficit to manageable terms,” said a senior government official. The deficit in the last budget was projected to be 6.8 per cent.

All this would mean that GBS for the next fiscal would be

Rs 3,73,000 crore as compared to Rs 3,24,000 in the financial year 2009-10, which Planning Commission deputy chairperson Montek Singh Ahluwalia described as “good”.

Since 2004, when UPA came to power, the increase in plan fund has ranged between 17 and 23 per cent.

“We have a very satisfactory outcome on Plan expenditure,” Ahluwalia said while stressing on effectiveness of the expenditure. The panel had sought a 19 per cent hike in GBS.

India’s social sector would continue to get fillip in the 2010-11 budget but it would be lowest in the six years of the UPA government. And, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) — the world’s biggest employment programme — would be the worst-hit with an allocation increase of just 2.5 per cent. Poor spending in 2009-10 is blamed for this decline.

“Till December 2009 only half of the funds allocated for NREGS were spent,” said Mihir Shah, member Planning Commission, in-charge of rural development.

He, however, expected the expenditure to increase in first three months of 2010 as demand for work would increase

Among social sectors, the government is keen to roll out its ambitious scheme Unique Identification Number (UID) for all Indian residents by December 2010. The plan panel has made an allocation of Rs 2,000 crore for this fiscal.

Another ministry to get huge jump in funds is Social Justice and Empowerment, whose plan budget would be doubled to Rs 5,000 crore, mainly to fund scholarship schemes for Scheduled Castes and the disabled.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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