Building on the work done in the last five years, Budget 2019-20 talks abundantly about schemes such as affordable housing, electricity, cooking gas, pension benefit for small traders, fertiliser subsidy and Kisan Samman.
Rolling out the first Union Budget in its second term, the Modi government seemed keen to keep the focus on people-centric schemes that fetched it rich electoral dividends in the general elections.
Building on the work done in the last five years, Budget 2019-20 talks abundantly about schemes such as affordable housing, electricity, cooking gas, pension benefit for small traders, fertiliser subsidy and Kisan Samman. Setting out clear tangible goals for the underprivileged majority, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman declared that the government aims to achieve the objective of housing for all by 2020 under the PM Awas Yojana – Gramin, electricity in every rural household under the Saubhagya scheme, and cooking gas under Ujjwala Yojana by 2022.
Keeping women in focus, the Budget proposes an overdraft of Rs 5,000 to every verified woman Self Help Group (SHG) member with a Jan Dhan Bank Account, and eligibility for a loan of up to Rs 1 lakh to one SHG member under the PM MUDRA Yojana.
To woo shopkeepers and traders who bore the brunt of demonetization and then GST, she announced pension benefit for those with annual sales of less than Rs 1.5 crore. Besides the Kisan Samman Nidhi largess, farmers will also get fertiliser subsidy benefits with increased allocation of Rs 10,000 crore through Direct Benefit Transfer.
While the Congress termed the new Budget "an insipid exercise" that mostly expanded existing programmes and schemes, politically speaking, these schemes can win votes for the ruling BJP in the upcoming elections in several key states.
Maharashtra, Haryana, Jharkhand, Delhi and Jammu and Kashmir will go into Assembly polls in less than a year, and many others such as Bihar, Kerala, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu will be due next year.
Aware that the ongoing water crisis can tilt political scales, the Budget focusses on providing potable water to every household by 2024. The Prime Minister has already declared Water Conservation a mission as important as Clean India.
The finance minister 1,592 critical and over-exploited blocks have been identified across 256 districts for Jal Shakti Abhiyan, and the government will allot additional funds under Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) for this purpose.
However, the opposition, especially the Congress, found the Budget bereft of any reform, let alone structural reforms. "Has there ever been a Budget speech that does not disclose allocations to important programmes such as Rural Employment, Midday Meal scheme, healthcare etc, and to vulnerable sections such as scheduled castes and tribes, minorities, women etc.? We are shocked by this departure from the usual practice," said former finance minister P Chidambaram.
He added that the most disappointed person must be the Chief Economic Adviser who had set the goal for India to become a USD 5 trillion economy by 2025 and premised his entire argument on boosting private investment. "There was no indication in the Budget speech of any measures to attract greater private investment," argued Chidambaram.
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