The boundaries of welfare

The boundaries of welfare

News: The article discusses the provisions laid out in the interim budget 2019-20.

Facts:

PM-KISAN scheme:

• As per PM-KISAN scheme, 12 crore “small landholding families” are to be given Rs 6,000 each annually.
• The scheme does not distinguish between irrigated and un-irrigated tracts.
• As both labourers and tenants are left out of the scheme, a host of absentee landowners would get the benefit, while actual cultivators without ownership rights would be left out.
• The Telangana Rythu Badhu scheme, was preceded by an updating of land records that established land ownership. But given the abysmal state of land records in the country as a whole, whose rectification would take months at the very least, the idea that immediate payments defies reason.

Pradhan Mantri Shram-Yogi Maandhan scheme:

• It offers a pension of Rs 3,000 per month after the age of 60 years to unorganised sector workers with monthly income of up to Rs 15,000.
• It does not promise a pension to the existing old people and it does not promise a pension that is half the minimum wage.
• Government talked about contributing a matching amount but Rs 100 per month contribution of a person from 29 years of age until he is 60 would amount to Rs 1,50,000. Hence Rs 3000 per month pension up to life expectancy age of 65 could be funded by a person’s own accumulation.