(Mani Shankar Aiyar is a Congress MP in the Rajya Sabha.)
Every year around the end of February, the sahib log and the pink papers (and now, increasingly the TV news channels) whip themselves into a frenzy over what the Budget holds for them.
There is no equivalent frisson of excitement among the broad masses of the Indian public. One reason, of course, is that the broad masses pay no direct taxes. Therefore, there is no incentive to discover how much less or more the taxman is going to snatch from them. But more important, I think, is that at least since we entered the era of neo-liberalism, the Finance Minister concentrates his attention on the corporates (who make or break his reputation) - and the corporates on him to see what's in it for them.
Of course, there is a ritual invocation of the poor and the kisan by every FM at the start of every budget speech, but once he has got over that hump, he quickly moves on to more congenial matters such as augmenting the annual Rs 6 lakh crore subsidy given to fat cats and written off under the heading "revenues foregone".
Unsurprisingly, this has happened again this year. Arun Jaitley shed a few crocodile tears for the kisan and khet-mazdoor before devoting five-sixth of his speech to his real clients. And this despite the fact that in this year where the (statistically fudged) claim is that India is growing at plus seven per cent, will cross eight per cent next year and soar to double digits thereafter, the Government's Economic Survey 2014-15, Vol II, chapter 5, divulges the tragic truth that Indian agriculture has grown by only 1.1 per cent in this miracle year.
Every single agricultural crop of significance is down. Our output of rice, wheat and coarse cereals (jowar, bajra etc) is down; our output of oilseeds and pulses is also down. Only monkey nuts are up! What has saved the rural economy is dairying and poultry. All this is spelled out in the Economic Survey but merits no attention in the Budget speech. Moreover, the Economic Survey details what needs to be done to pull this most vital sector of the Indian economy out of the mire in which it is sunk. But the Finance Minister (and his PM) appear to have skipped Chapter 5 which succinctly sets out the steps to be taken.
Moreover, no recognition is accorded to the heartbreaking story of agricultural credit despite numerous studies, most recently the 2013 NSSO 70th round, establishing conclusively that "the crop loans are not reaching intended beneficiaries and there are no systems and procedures in place at several bank branches to monitor the end-use of funds." These alarming facts are underlined at a time when 40 percent of farmers' credit requirements are still being secured from "informal sources" (which translates as the village middleman) and "usurious moneylenders account for a 26 percent share of total agricultural credit", both "issues that need to be addressed on a priority basis". The share of long-term credit in total agricultural credit has collapsed from 55 percent to 39 percent. Worse still, the bulk of so-called rural credit is availed of by corporate farmers from urban branches, while a disturbingly large number of kisans are not even aware of the credit facilities being made available by Government.
This is clearly a government that either knows nothing of India's real needs or is so obsessed with its corporate sponsors that it cannot look beyond the factory to the farm. The tragedy, therefore, continues of 60 per cent of India's population that lives in her villages having to make do with just 13 percent of the nation's GDP.
Where then should the priority lie? Please don't ask Mr. Jaitley because the poor man does not know. All he sees are the bulging bags of private domestic and foreign industrialists. Hence, a Jaitley budget that is principally addressed to these corporate big-wigs and their fellow-sahib log.
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