news details |
|
|
| 2007-08 Union Budget for the poor? | | | BL KAK
NEW DELHI, MARCH 1:
The BJP-led Opposition NDA has acted swiftly to portray the rival UPA government headed by Manmohan Singh in dismal colours. Encouraged and emboldened by the defeat of the ruling Congress party in the just-concluded Assembly polls in Punjab and Uttarakhand, the BJP and its allies in States and at the national level have chosen the Union Budget for 2007-08 as the propaganda vehicle against the UPA government.
The two ruling economists, Manmohan Singh and Finace Minister, P Chidambaram, may differ with each other on some issues. But this time the two seem united on one thing--that is, to insist on the 'pro-poor' content in the Union Budget, which was presented to Parliament on Wednesday. Opposition parties' criticism may not be out of place. But they will have to accept that the UPA government has not failed on the economic front.
That agriculture "must top the agenda of policy-makers" shows how India's ruling coalition has grasped what eluded its predecessors, or at least how it is learning from their mistakes. India's last general elections were a text-book lesson in economics as well as democracy, and the intricacies that bind them together in the modern political system.
Impressive as the Vajpayee government's India Shining with its high growth rate and expanding investor-class was, it failed to tag along the near-subsistence agricultural workforce, which in turn had its voice heard when votes were counted, lending credence to the 'world's largest democracy' claim. Considering the larger picture, the policy India's economic managers have introduced through the annual budget is in fact an attempt to tackle the main economic problem confronting rising developing countries across Asia.
Their economic turnaround banks on feverish industrial activity, particularly large scale manufacturing, catering to burgeoning industrial input-demand. But from the larger economic point of view, the gains of this exercise are limited to the already vibrant upper class with the capital to partake in the process, and little if any trickles down to the lesser privileged. The reason has been continued reliance on the up-down growth model, which relies on the trickle-down doctrine.
However, Chidambaram and his boys in the Union Finance Ministry have apparently realised that to make the growth continue in the middle to long term, the above mentioned model has to be applied in tandem with visible uplift effort at the grass roots. With approximately two-thirds of the Indian workforce surviving off the agri-sector, it is imperative that the sector be given direct attention, while waiting for the gains from the top to make their way down.
Therefore, the attempt to make lagging agriculture growth catch up with targeted estimates, the three pronged approach of offering cheaper credit to farmers, expanding the rural job guarantee scheme and bringing five million farmers into the banking system should bring about better results than the recent past. That so because while the end of maintaining high growth has remained undeterred, the means applied have been diversified. It bears noting that the Congress learnt its lesson in no small manner in the State elections, where people's anxiety over uncontrolled inflation found effective translation in the ballot.
Should the new mix receive adequate state support and implementation, it would not be surprising to see regional rivals take inspiration sooner rather than later. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
