Budget 2009-10: Mere handful of sops

The ���second challenge��� that finance minister Pranab Mukherjee mentioned in his Budget speech ��� of broadening and deepening ���inclusive development��� to vast millions ��� is still a seemingly unassailable task. Indeed, in a country where around 28% of the population still lives below the poverty line, where, for vast swathes and sections, the state either simply never existed or has retreated, talk of progress, growing riches and corporate India might well be incomprehensible emanations from another planet. At least, they might well say, in creaky old socialist India, words like ���populism��� were perhaps not quite so infra-dig. There is something to be said for a state of affairs where, say, schemes that assure cheap rice or wheat to the poorest, for whom it means a chance to continue a basic minimum human existence, are often targeted as a bit of a waste. Not quite economic commonsense.

Try telling the heehaws of India Inc that social Darwinism might not quite be the done thing, and they might well sniff around for that missing jhola. The missing public, thankfully, has a way of electorally tapping on the door. But whether schemes like the NREGA actually helped the UPA surge back stronger than before is a moot point. What���s more important is perhaps the butterfly effect such a momentous scheme has, socio-economically speaking.

Guaranteeing a certain amount of work a year, at a minimum wage, also means, for example, that a large number of family units stay together back home and labour migration patterns change drastically.

Thus, what is perhaps more relevant in the long-term than the FM���s increase in allocation to NREGA to Rs 39,100 crore is the ���convergence��� he envisaged. Not just work, but the kind of work, and its long-term sustainability is what���s equally important. The other issue that does habitually plague even basic projects, like the proposed Food Security Act, or the other rural development and poverty-alleviation schemes, is that of implementation. And that���s not just a matter of centralised planning going predictably awry at the state and local level, but also to do with a certain bureaucratic and political culture. To remedy that, simply, one can only posit the necessity of deeper systemic change.

Biometric cards et al are being bandied around as the solution, as is the much-touted UID project. No deriding those hopes, but does one care to remember the many fiascos that can easily accompany getting hold of that PAN or the voters EPIC card? Just why are we easily giving up on the idea of actually striving to radically improve existing delivery mechanisms?

There is, in brief, always that just-so-right mix of well-intentioned folly and actual good ideas that seem to accompany government thinking. Take the FMs pronouncements on Minority Welfare for example. Amidst the grants-in-aid is the other scheme of pre-matric and post-matric scholarships for minorities. Directly aiding the critical areas of primary and secondary education is just quite a step in the right direction.

For, it all has to dovetail into the wider, deeper process of inclusive political mobilisation. Something all the political parties seem to be failing at. The second challenge is arguably the first.