India’s social sector expenditures are amongst the lowest among all major economies of the world. In this concluding part of our budget analysis of Union Budget 2021-22, we present proposals on how the Centre can more than double its social sector expenditures. Part I: Snapshot of Subsidies Given to Rich in Budgets According to the Economic Survey, the annual document[Read More…]

Budget and Nutrition Schemes Hunger and Malnutrition ‘Emergency’ India’s rulers may be claiming that the country is heading towards becoming a global superpower,  but what is for sure is that its hunger levels are amongst the worst in the world. The Global Hunger Index (GHI), a multidimensional statistical tool designed to comprehensively measure and track hunger globally and by country[Read More…]

In this part, we analyse the allocations made in the Budget for education and health, from a people’s perspective. Budget and Education Education is fundamental to human as well as societal development. Which is why in all developed countries, governments have taken the responsibility of providing Free, Equitable and Good Quality school education to All their children (the private sector[Read More…]

Overestimating tax revenue and budgetary outlay There was always some discrepancy between budget estimates (BE), revised estimates (RE) and actuals (A)[1] over the years—as is to be expected—but such differences were relatively minor. Over the last few years, the Modi Government has indulged in dressing up of the budget figures, because of which these differences have become so vast that[Read More…]

Despite all the manipulations done by the Modi Government with the GDP figures, the economic slowdown has been so persistent that now, finally, the official figures also admit that economy began slowing down before the pandemic. GDP Growth Rate Till 2019, just before the elections, Modi and the then Finance Minister Arun Jaitley claimed that India is the fastest growing[Read More…]

Keeping in view the escalating farmer discontent in India in recent times, many people had reason to expect that the union government will respond by significantly raising the budget for agriculture, particularly in the context of  some of its most favored schemes. But when the union budget for 2021-22 was presented recently, they were in for a rude shock as[Read More…]

Union Budget 2021-2022 is a Saga of Deception Presenting the digital Union Budget, Union Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs stated that India’s fight against COVID-19 continues into 2021 and that this moment in history, when the political, economic, and strategic relations in the post-COVID world are changing, is the dawn of a new era – one in which India is well-poised to truly be the land[Read More…]

While all sections of people suffered in Covid, women and children suffered even more. Several studies including the recently released Oxfam Inequality report have documented that the loss of job is even more in troubled times for women and it is even more difficult for them to get their work back. Women in the unorganized sector who could save their[Read More…]

Budgets are political visions with economic planning based on resource allocation and revenue generation to face the crisis, fulfil the needs and desires of citizens, and shape the path towards future prosperity of society. Modi’s Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s budget speech and her budget documents in the tablet made by a South Korean company and backed up in a tablet[Read More…]

The Union Budget this year presented a huge opportunity for the government to break a new ground in terms of  equality based path out of economic crisis. After all it is well known that inequalities have grown greatly during recent times with a further accelerating trend in 2020, in particular there have been huge gains for several billionaires and also[Read More…]

In December 2020, talking at a CII meet, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman reportedly stated: “100 years of India wouldn’t have seen a budget being made post-pandemic like this”. The budget to be presented on February 1, 2021 will indeed be a once a century budget, since never before has the GDP and revenue collection fallen so steeply. Never before have[Read More…]

The forthcoming union budget is considered to be of extraordinary importance as it is being presented in the middle of a serious economic crisis. More specifically there are exceptionally high under-achievements regarding GNP and revenue receipts combined with very pressing needs of several sectors at the same time. Whatever the constraints, the budget of health and education sectors has to[Read More…]