{"id":165442,"date":"2022-01-31T20:47:19","date_gmt":"2022-01-31T15:17:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=165442"},"modified":"2022-01-31T20:49:19","modified_gmt":"2022-01-31T15:19:19","slug":"show-commitment-to-equity-in-the-budget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/show-commitment-to-equity-in-the-budget\/","title":{"rendered":"Show commitment to equity in the Budget"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

News: <\/strong>Recently, <\/strong>Oxfam International presented \u201cInequality Report\u201d with the title \u201cInequality Kills\u201d.<\/p>\n

What does the report say?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

One<\/strong>, the report highlighted the growth in wealth of a few and the simultaneously increasing poverty among millions.<\/p>\n

Two<\/strong>, more than half the world\u2019s new poor are from India and 84% of Indian households have suffered a loss of income during the pandemic, with 4.6 crore people falling into extreme poverty. However, Oxfam says the combined wealth of India\u2019s 142 billionaires has increased by a massive \u20b930 lakh-crore.<\/p>\n

Why budget should <\/strong>show commitment to equity<\/strong>?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Inequality threatens basic rights, and there is also a constitutional mandate to reduce inequality. Directive Principles of State Policy should be a guiding light for the budget. For example, Article 38(1) states<\/strong> that the State shall strive to promote the welfare of the people by securing and protecting as effectively as it may a social order in which justice, social, economic, and political, shall inform all the institutions of the national life.<\/p>\n

Article 39 (c)<\/strong> states that the State shall secure an economic system that does not result in the concentration of wealth and means of production.<\/p>\n

Which issues should be immediately addressed by Budget 2022?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

First<\/strong>, India witnessed a decline in health budget during the COVID-19 pandemic by a huge 10% in the last year. Social security expenditure has declined from 1.5% in 2020-21 to 0.6% of the Union Budget in 2022.<\/p>\n

Second<\/strong>, people are deprived of the most basic services and entitlements. Social security pensions, for the elderly, the disabled, and widows have been frozen at \u20b9200-\u20b9300 a month for almost 15 years.<\/p>\n

Third<\/strong>, during the pandemic, National Food Security Act (NFSA) and the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) have saved millions of Indians from hunger and premature death.<\/p>\n

However, after increasing allocations in the first phase of the pandemic, allocations were frozen in Budget 2021-22. It undermines the legal guarantee of work on demand.<\/p>\n

Fourth<\/strong>, the priority list of households under the NFSA is based on the 2011 Census. However, the population has increased, and therefore 12% of legally entitled people cannot get subsidized food grain.<\/p>\n

Fifth<\/strong>, the pandemic has affected formal education and many teenagers from poor households have already joined the workforce. But the budget 2021 reduced the education budget by 6%, which will further institutionalize multidimensional poverty.<\/p>\n

What is the way forward?<\/strong><\/p>\n

First<\/strong>, programmes such as the food security Act should receive the quantum of allocations needed, as India has food grain stocks of more than 90 million tons.<\/p>\n

Second<\/strong>, The People\u2019s Action for Employment Guarantee (PAEG) has estimated that \u20b92,64,000 crore will be needed to guarantee 100 days’ work for currently active job cards. Hence, there is a need to increase allocation to MGREGA.<\/p>\n

Third<\/strong>, to deal with resource scarcity and to reduce inequality, the budget should introduce a 2% wealth tax and a 33% inheritance tax on the top 1% of our population. It will fetch an estimated \u20b911 lakh crore per annum to support basic social sector entitlements.<\/p>\n

Fourth<\/strong>, it is time to introspect, generate robust data, and follow a rights-based policy framework to protect the poor and the marginalized.<\/p>\n

Source<\/strong>: This post is based on the article \u201cShow commitment to equity in the Budget\u201d<\/strong> published in\u00a0The Hindu<\/strong> on<\/strong> 31st<\/sup> Jan 2022<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

News: Recently, Oxfam International presented \u201cInequality Report\u201d with the title \u201cInequality Kills\u201d. What does the report say? One, the report highlighted the growth in wealth of a few and the simultaneously increasing poverty among millions. Two, more than half the world\u2019s new poor are from India and 84% of Indian households have suffered a loss… Continue reading Show commitment to equity in the Budget<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10316,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[216,10498],"class_list":["post-165442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-3","tag-the-hindu","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704737456},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10316"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165442"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165442\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}