The first day of the second month of the year has always been special. One, people start planning to reduce their tax burden. Two, They, especially the salaried, look up to the Finance Minister for some relief! Maybe Lakshmi Devi will have some pity and help them in saving some money in the next financial year, if not in the one that has passed by.

Be that as it may, the day came and went as unceremoniously as it could be. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman’s speech started with a not-so-usual statement, “At the outset, I want to take a moment to express my empathy for those who had to bear adverse health and economic effects of the pandemic.” 

This would have certainly raised the expectations of many as the Finance Minister recognised that “we are in the midst of the Omicron wave.” However, the very next moment she started praising the vaccination drive and jumped on to the newly coined word “Amrit Kaal”, the 25-year run up to India@100.

Of late, our students have been forced to participate in several activities marking this kaal albeit by the Central Board of Secondary Education. Poor kids felt so overburdened and confused as many schools had started preparation for PT-4, generally called the terminal examinations.  

With the announcement of Amrit Kaal, she went on to articulate the vision for the next 25 years in three lines! Several times in her speech she mentioned that the budget was “futuristic and inclusive” and it laid down the blueprint for the next 25 years! One is left with only one thought: perhaps, the government believes that it will be in power till 2047! 

With this, the Finance Minister drew up four priority areas -– PM GatiShakti; inclusive development; productivity enhancement and investment; and financing of these investments. Throughout her speech, the focus remained on infrastructure, be it a masterplan for road construction or waterways or unified logistic interface platform or Vande Bharat trains.

As far as agriculture was concerned, her focus remained on promoting chemical-free natural farming, delivery of digital and hi-tech services, usage of drones to support farmers and launching of a special fund for promoting agro-based start-ups. However, the minister did not speak a word about the vision that was laid down by the Prime Minister in 2016. The Pradhan Sewak had announced on February 28, 2016, that by the time India celebrated its 75th Independence Day in 2022, the farmers’ income would have doubled.

The average monthly income of farmers in absolute terms stood at Rs. 10,218 in 2018-19. If the recent reports are to be believed, the average income of farmers is nowhere near the targeted income. It has remained stagnant over the last five years. The government has failed miserably on this front. Ironically, it has neither accepted its failure nor any “blueprint” has been laid to double their income at least in the next financial year. Hope it does not take as long as “Amrit Kaal” to achieve this vision!

The budget has left the common man with a question mark. When the Finance Minister expressed her “empathy” towards those who suffered during the pandemic, people thought that the budget might have been prepared keeping in mind the unemployed youth, children who have lost access to education, and also immediate need to provide social security to the marginalised.

The budget has actually disappointed the general public on this front too. Enough evidence has been generated to prove that children have been one of the most affected lots during the last two years of the pandemic. The Finance Minister did acknowledge that there has been a huge learning loss due to lack of devices or Internet access and prolonged school closure. But what kind of steps are being proposed to undo this collateral damage?

Well, the Minister proposes to expand “one class one TV channel” to 200 TV channels. True, TV certainly has acquired a huge reach and can be a good way of sharing content to the last-mile learners. But how effective has this method proved to be? The Minister should have thought it over before making such an announcement.

A recent report titled, “Locked out: Emergency report on school education” shows that only 1 per cent of the rural children and 8 per cent of the urban children acknowledged to have used TV as a mode of study. Close to 50 per cent of the children, be it from urban or rural regions, have found online classes/videos difficult to follow. Even a sample survey conducted by the Department of School Education in the Kendriya Vidyalayas reveals the stark reality that only one-third of the students found online education joyful! Will TV be able to bridge this huge learning gap? Certainly not.

As far as children are concerned, there has not been much change in the budgetary allocation. Their share has seen a consistent decrease over the last 11 years. The year 2022-23 is no different with an overall share of only 2.35 per cent. The absolute figure might have increased but the overall proportion has reduced, as compared to last year. Out of this 2.35 per cent, only 1.77 per cent has been allocated for education, 0.09 per cent for their health, 0.45 per cent for their overall development and a meagre 0.04 per cent is for child protection!

While the Finance Minister promised to upgrade two lakh Anganwaris to Saksham Anganwaris, the budgetary allocation has reduced considerably. And so has been the case with Poshan 2.0 Abhiyan. The allocation for PM Poshan Shakti Nirman, which was once called the mid-day meal scheme, has also reduced by 11.01 per cent.

We all know that school closure has made the children more vulnerable. With reduced income levels, the children are being forced into child labour. The budget has been a huge disappointment in this regard too with a sharp cut of 75 per cent in the national child labour programme (NCLP).

The flagship scheme of achieving Anaemia-mukt Bharat, too, did not get much weightage. The scheme has not been able to create much impact. In fact, the programme has not even been launched in 18 states and UTs and 23 states did not receive the digital equipment to measure haemoglobin. This is the progress of the scheme which had an ambitious target of reducing anaemia by 3 percentage points every year since 2018.

When it comes to youth and their employability, there is nothing that enthuses us in this budget. The minister has certainly recognised the problem and has announced that 6 million jobs will be created over the next five years. However, she does not seem to have much understanding about the issue.

Every year, around 5 million people enter the job market. By the end of 2019, India already had around 30 million unemployed youth. How can this initiative resolve this humongous problem?

The pandemic has only accentuated this problem. People who had migrated to metro cities like Delhi went back to their villages. The only source of income for people who went back to villages due to the pandemic could have been MNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act). However, there is not much respite on this front as well. In fact, the state governments have not yet received money from the Centre for payment of arrears to the workers.

Till December 2021, around 91 lakh households demanded work under MNREGA only to face disappointment. Not only this, the government had notified an increase of 4 per cent in wage rates. But the actual wage rates remained low for many states even till December 31, 2021!

As far as taxes are concerned, the salaried class did not receive any relief. Instead, a 30 per cent tax has been levied on transfer of digital assets. Meanwhile, a graphic on social media has captured the attention of many. It shows that if you earn Rs. 25,000 a month, you earn more than 90 per cent of Indians. The graphic has been culled from World Inequality database 2021. Is this what you mean by inclusion in Amrit Kaal, Madam Finance Minister? At least the budget does create such an impression.

(The writer, a company secretary, can be reached at jassi.rai@gmail.com)