Training guns on the “undemocratic manner” in which the Aadhaar Bill was passed last week, activists from seven major campaigns across sectors, such as food, health and education, on Monday accused the government of not only “Constitutional infringement” on privacy, but also “ignoring the opinion of States” by bypassing the Rajya Sabha.

“Aadhaar neither prevents leakages of ration, particularly from godown to shops, nor does it deter corruption. On the contrary, it gives the officials undue power to decide whose biometrics match or not, and has proven time and again that it is one of the most inefficient ways of ensuring delivery given the inordinate dependence on machines”, said Nikhil Dey at a press conference on the Budget’s proposals on the social sector.

Meagre allocation

Kavita Srivastava of the Right to Food Campaign said the budget was far from being pro-farmer. “The actual increase in allocation is only 33 per cent, not 128 per cent, as claimed by the government,” she said.

Pointing out that the budgetary allocations for the social sector had declined not only in nominal terms but more drastically in real terms, Mathew Cherian of Pension Parishad said if any of the schemes get indexed to inflation, it is evident that the decline could be as drastic as over 100 per cent in the case of old age pension. Bezwada Wilson, National Convener, Safai Karamchari Andolan, said the five-year outlay of ₹4,656 crore committed for rehabilitation of manual scavengers in 2013 was reduced to ₹10 crore in the present Budget on the plea that funds are underutilised. “Who is responsible for this” he asked.

Health mission

Vandana Prasad of Jan Swasthya Abhiyan said it was “worrying that the government’s flagship programme for strengthening the public health system, the National Health Mission — given the impact of inflation and population increase — had an insignificant rise from ₹19,135.37 crore in 2015-16 year to ₹19,437 crore for 2016-17. This is actually is 6-7 per cent decrease per capita, she added.

Related Topics