The All-India Nabard Employees' Association has voiced concern over what it called as 'pernicious provisions' in the Union Budget for 2014-15.
Rana Mitra, Vice-President of the Association, said it was regrettable that expenditure under the ‘sensitive’ social sector was cut down by nearly ₹2 lakh crore from the prevous year to ₹4.84 lakh crore.
He also pointed out to the reduction in allotment for agriculture by nearly ₹7,250 crore and in rural development by a whopping ₹53,356 crore from 2013-14.
Women and child welfare too saw a contraction in allocation to only 0.1 per cent of the total budget proposal from 1.1 per cent.
“There is no increase in allocation in MGNREGA or Indira AwasYojna; rather in real terms, it has declined,” Mitra said.
Plan allocation
The total plan allocation has also declined in real terms roughly by four per cent.
Even the share of SCs/STs in the total plan expenditure has fallen short by ₹47,000 crore and ₹14,000 crore, respectively against the Planning Commission guidelines on allotment based on population.
The budget also proposes a cut down in petroleum subsidy by ₹22,054 crore, which would only add to the burden of the common man and fuel inflationary pressure.
‘Silver lining’
In this context, Mitra said that the budget did not have a concrete proposal to check the double-digit food inflation even in the face of projections of a bad monsoon.
“The budget proposes to go in for divestment of shares from the public sector, including banks, and hints at inviting bank mergers. This would only spell disaster for the interest of the poor,” Mitra said.
The proposal to increase FDI in various sectors, including in insurance and defence, went against the recommendations of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance for the 15th Lok Sabha.
But Mitra welcomed a ‘few silver linings on the horizon’ as in the proposal to give tax relief to salaried employees. But he feared that these would be nullified by other proposals in the Budget.
He also hailed the proposal to allot ₹5,000 crore for a ‘long-term rural credit fund’ to jack up capital formation in agriculture. But trends of increasing corporate domination of rural credit needed to be arrested.