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Review of Union Budget 2004 Structural Issues Left Unaddressed - Part I It is clear from the people's verdict reflected in electoral mandate that the BJP could not piggyback on the 'feel good' that was made out to be the folklore in the 'India Signing' campaign with election fervor caught-up the political-policy circle. It is argued that such political backlash was inevitable since in its penchant for savvy outward looking oriented economy, the BJP did alienate the vast segment of population from the ambit of economic progress. Notwithstanding its aggressive media campaign portraying the common man - the agricultural farmer beaming with a smile on the highway of growth, the rural mass earning their livelihood from traditional occupations mainly agriculture, the true constituents of the Bharat, not convinced that they reaped any significant benefits during its tenure. Indeed Indian agriculture is ailing throughout the 90s. Not only it has registered an abysmal historic low of 1.9 percent in 90s (excluding last year), the lowest decadal growth in the post-independence history that too in spite of twelve consecutive good monsoon years but also agricultural production remained highly volatile compared to the 80s. Annual real rates of gross capital formation declined sharply from 5.4 to 1.5 percent between the early and late 90s. The share of public investment has fallen from 33 to 22 percent. Cumulatively, a sharply pruned public investment in agriculture, structural shift in the allocation of credit as well as dwindling rural credit disbursements from institutional lenders are the proximate causes for a fall in farm employment as reported by NSSO 55th round and casualisation of labour. Quite expectedly the cliché 'reforms with human face' was believed to subsume a provision of a new deal to agriculture and rural development. Given these developments, the awkward Congress joined the Left parties and other small coalition partners forming the National Common Minimum Programme to reflect the wish and aspirations of the Bharat with an explicit assurance by Prime Minister Monmohan Singh just before budget presentation in a televised address. Subsequently, the Budget 2004 has been termed as a budget with a focus on agriculture and rural development. But a close reading of the numbers suggests otherwise. A budget weary about "fiscal conservatism" but not by containing consumption expenditures such as defence, which on the contrary gets a huge leap, but by a meager allocation to many a agricultural and rural oriented novel programmes. One finds that either the intent of the budget doesn't explicitly spells out the modalities of implementation or fructification of many a programmes squarely depends on the efficacy and willingness of state machinery or most of the crucial expenditure decisions are put under "exhaustive review" and more importantly many a structural issues are unaddressed. The budget smacks to be bitten by this bug as one reads the fine print. Authored by - |
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