Fewer new schemes this budget

With the government aiming fiscal consolidation, only a few schemes — Right To Education (RTE), model villages and Unique Identification Authority — are likely to be announced in the general budget to be presented on February 26, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Feb 23, 2010, 24:09:51 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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With the government aiming fiscal consolidation, only a few schemes — Right To Education (RTE), model villages and Unique Identification Authority — are likely to be announced in the general budget to be presented on February 26.

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee will provide enough funds for the education law. More than Rs 150,000 crore will be needed over five years for its implementation, estimates the government.

School education will continue to get priority. The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (education for all) and mid-day meal schemes can expect higher allocation in the next fiscal.

“There are indications that the budget will mark the launch of RTE,” said a government official, requesting anonymity. Funds for food security and low-cost housing for the urban poor will be put on a slow track to allow preparatory work as these schemes involve states’ participation, he said.

To keep the deficit below six per cent as compared to 6.8 per cent for this fiscal, the government is unlikely to provide enough funds for expanding the National Rural Health Mission to National Health Mission, covering urban areas. The National Health Mission is seen as a precursor to the right to health law, which the government wants to finalise in 2010. The minister is likely to restrict himself to signaling the government’s intention to pursue these schemes.

Women, who constitute half of country’s population, could get the National Mission for Empowerment of Women. The grants will be with truncated — Rs 64 crore instead of Rs 120 crore sought by the women and child development ministry. The mission will coordinate between various ministries, and not launch schemes, so not much money will be required, said the official.

The government is looking at gross budgetary support of 14.7 per cent (about Rs 3.73 lakh crore), of which Rs 92,000 crore will be the funding for the states.

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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