Appu Singh

Let us never forget this fundamental truth. The government has no source of money other than the people’s money that they earn themselves. If the government wants to spend more, it can do so only by borrowing your savings or by taxing you. It is no good thinking that someone else will pay. That someone else is you.”

Our esteemed Finance minister Nirmala Sitaraman presented her 7th consecutive budget, surpassing Morarji Desai’s record but Budget 2024 does not speak about the ‘Amrit Kaal’ and is clueless about how India will be transforming to Viksit Bharat by 2047? Rather, the first major document of Modi 3.0 government oscillates between multiple pulls and pressures and creates an obfuscating picture about the health of the finances of our country, India that is Bharat.

The Finance minister has repeatedly failed in tackling the increasing gap between the rich and the poor. The numbers are discouraging: Top 1% of India accounted for the 45% of all the flights; 1% of the Indians took home 22% of India’s income; 6.5% of the Indians are responsible for 44% of all the UPI transactions and we the tax payers have always waited for a vociferous answer.

Indian Budget 2024 – 25 has again given its rhetorical new tax regime, which doesn’t beautify the purses of the common man but it will certainly add to the coffers of the ‘Rich Indians’.

The budget at a glance establishes that the share of the government revenue from income tax (tax on individuals) at 19% is more than what the corporates have contributed at 17%. Moreover, this budget clearly shows that the government has learnt no lessons from the Lok Sabha polls – the reprioritization that was so necessary, by allotting substantially higher funds to cater to the needs of the marginalized sections is not visible in the budget for 2024 – 25.

The total budget expenditure out of which funds are allotted to various sectors is 7.1% above last year’s expenditure and 1% above the interim budget expenditure. Thus there is not much scope for any increase in specific allocation unless there is a sharp reprioritization. Rather, some allocations could have been curtailed to give more to the priority areas. Moreover, the budget does highlight main issues but doesn’t devote resources to them.

Furthermore, the aggregate allocation to education, skill development, agriculture and climate change isn’t very impressive and lip service has been done to the ethos of economic growth and the Prime Minister’s conviction in words like: positive outlook, investment and performance.

The budget is unambitious and devoid of the contentions that more focus needs to be given to industry and services sector. It’s apparent that the government’s focus is more on infrastructure, metros and highways; less on human capital building; more on carving new welfare programmes and enhanced social sector spending and less on aligning policies to augment domestic investment, improved domestic value addition and export competitiveness.

Its imperative to understand that the manufacturing sector’s share in the GDP has stagnated as per the National Accounts Statistics and there is an urgent need for a well designed industrial policy to address the problem of lack of net investment growth in manufacturing.

Its pivotal to note that small industry requires localized, context – specific and last mile interventions to boost productive employment. Moreover, manufacturing sector faces challenges like the limited export and competition from countries like China, Vietnam, Indonesia and Mexico, which offer cheap labour.

It’s a sad state of affairs that the government still hasn’t woken up from its slumber that the essence of budget is always in its ‘execution’. The voters of this great democracy will, minutely observe how the government will maintain the bonhomie between fiscal discipline and the ‘new 9 priorities’ set up in budget 2024.

Rather, the government might take it as a ludicrous argument but how does it plan to ease restrictions on Chinese investments in non-sensitive sectors like solar panels and battery manufacturing, areas where domestic expertise is lacking?

Women in India constitute 30% of the workforce and according to 2011 census, 48% of the total Indian population. It is a far-fetched thought that India has moved from women’s development to women led development.

Allocating Rupees 3.1 lakh crore/ 6.5% of the total budget outlay for schemes and programmes is not a great number as it still constitutes less than 1% of the country’s GDP. The moot question is whether this shift in focus to women led development – is the gender budget very different from previous years?

In first glance, it does seem like there is a substantial increase in the budgetary allocations for women and girls with the total gender budget for 2024-25 (BE) being rupees 327158.44 crore compared to rupees 238219.75 crore for 2023-24 (BE). This definitely reflects an increase from 5.3% of the total expenditure and 0.8% of GDP in 2023-24 to 6.9% of TE and 1% of GDP in 2024-25.

Yet, there are a volley of questions that need to be answered by the Finance Minister with respect to our epicenters of household budgets, ‘the women of India’. The Interim Budget 2024 spoke of the ASHA, Anganwadi workers and helpers but no space is given to their pay structure as they continue to work on stagnant wages;

More participation in the workforce/ inclusion is still a distant dream; tax exemptions and tax slabs are rhetorical; post retirement schemes don’t seem to be a priority; care and infrastructure packages and support policy for pregnant women were never an agenda for the government; PM Mudra Yojana speaks of 68% of loans to female entrepreneurs but financial resilience is futile if the women cant market what they produce.

Moreover, the fact that the site of the PM Awas Yojana Rural/Urban are shut for the last two months for new enrolment in J&K; it takes almost two years for an elderly lady to get a toilet in a place called ‘Trindiyan’ in Ramgarh, Samba and a pashmina worker, Rinku Devi from Mandla, Basholi, who instilled her faith in Self Help Group, took loan and lost her products in a flash flood in Kashmir in 2014 and is still begging for her compensation for her pashmina shawls, carves a niche of the ‘pseudo women led development’.

The conspectus of Budget 2024 -25 vividly explains how the government has lived upto the ethos of co-operation by taking a leaf from the Congress manifesto as it announced internships and the ’employment linked incentive’.

While the rupees 15,000 crore Amravati story was a no grant but a ‘World bank’ involvement but then there was an absence of packages for internally displaced people in Manipur in the Budget announced by the FM.

Its paramount to note that the Finance minister has no preparations for the surgery after the financial diagnosis – after all the new budget turns the screws on the middle class players and the rich get a free run.

We cannot negate the fact that India is the fastest growing economy in the G20 but also the poorest. We are overtaking countries in terms of overall GDP and we might overtake Japan and Germany in our vague dreams but will the government answer an imperative question: will Indians become rich before Indians grow old? Alas! Budget 2024 – 25 is impeccably and meticulously packed!