[Marxistindia] On Union Budget

[news from the cpi(m)]

February 1, 2018

Press Statement

 

The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has issued the
following statement:

 

Union Budget 2018-19:

Protest Against Further Attacks on People's Livelihood

 

This last full budget of the Modi government before the next general
elections reflects, once again, it's clear commitment to serve the interests
of foreign and domestic big corporates while mounting further assaults  on
the vast majority of the working people of our country.  This assault is,
however, sought to be window-dressed to appear as its opposite.

 

The budget does not seek to mobilize revenues by increasing  direct taxes
applicable  to the rich, in spite of the fact that the top one per cent of
the Indian population  garnered 73 per cent of the additional wealth
generated in 2017. On the contrary, governmental expenditures increasingly
rely on  indirect taxes which are a burden on the common people. In fact,
the proportion of the direct taxes in gross central taxes budgeted to come
down from 51.6 per cent  to 50.6 per cent.

 

A lot of fanfare is being created by packaging the budget as pro-poor by
projecting massive expenditures on agriculture, rural development and
national health care scheme of medical coverage of 10 crore households upto
Rs. 5 lakhs per year.  The health care scheme is a mere repackaging of the
existing one  and no additional allocations have been budgeted.  It is clear
that this scheme will also be used to give handouts to insurance companies.
Experiences have shown that health or crop insurance schemes have resulted
in a profit bonanza for corporates rather than benefits to the people.

 

This is a contractionary budget.  This means that there will be further
reduction of employment opportunities  and social welfare expenditures.  The
government expenditure to GDP has now reduced further from 13.2 per cent to
13 per cent. Last year, the levels of  capital expenditure on central social
schemes were below  the budgeted targets, meaning a cut to meet the fiscal
deficit target by reducing expenditures for people's welfare.  That the tax
revenue collection's growth indicating to be below  the targets, the
government has reduced its expenditures directly affecting adversely the
people's livelihood.  The expenditure on agriculture and  rural
development, as percentage of GDP, is reduced from 1.15 per cent to 1.08 per
cent;  the total health expenditure has fallen from 0.32 per cent of the GDP
to 0.29 per cent;  Central expenditure on education has fallen from 0.49 per
cent of the GDP to 0.45 per cent;  the gender budget has fallen from 0.68
per cent to 0.65 per cent of GDP;  allocations for welfare of STs is below
1.6 per cent of the total budget and for SCs, it is 2.32 per cent.   This is
totally inadequate seen in proportion  to the share  in population.  The
allocation for MNREGA has remained unchanged and Rs. 4,800 crores are still
owed to state governments from 2017-18.

 

Yet again, the government promises to declare a minimum support price at
least one and a half times the production costs.  The Finance Minister
misled the country that the government had already declared such an MSP for
a majority of Rabi crops.  This has never been seen in implementation across
the country.  Similarly, other claims of extended crop loan facility  etc
are not concretised in budgetary allocations.  The allocation for food
subsidy and procurement of crops is grossly inadequate  to provide either
support to the farmers or  commitments under the Food Security Act.  There
is no mention of a loan waiver for the farmers groaning under debt burden
who continue to be pushed to commit distress suicides. 

 

The middle classes have seen no direct benefit. The employees see a
reduction in the earnings on their savings.  Even the so-called relief of
Rs. 2 per liter of petrol and  diesel is offset by increasing the cess from
Rs. 6 to 8 per liter.  

 

In sum, this budget is a typical propaganda packaging exercise by this Modi
government to hoodwink the people.  This contracts  expenditures and
disinvests public sector to reduce the fiscal deficit to appease
international  finance at the expense of imposing greater burdens on the
Indian  people.

 

The CPI(M) calls upon all its units to organize popular protests against
such an anti-people budget that comes on top of the miseries imposed by
demonetization and the GST.  

 

 

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