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Of lucky numbers and others the FM can’t see by Biraj Patnaik
The Italian phrase "lascia il tempo que trova" (it leaves the air it finds) does a better job of describing Pranab Mukherjee's budget than India's corporate media would ever dare to do.

To put it mildly, the budget this year, is yet again, an utter disappointment for the food and agriculture sectors. To begin with, flagship schemes like the midday meals and the Integrated Child Development Services did not, unlike in previous years, even find mention in the finance minister's speech. Unsurprising, since the allocation for both programmes has seen a cutback in real terms.

Take the budget for the ICDS which has seen an increase of Rs 864 crore. Of this, close to Rs 250 crore is for a much-deserved increase in the wages of anganwadi workers , which have been doubled from Rs 1500 per month to Rs 3000 per month. This means an effective increase of just Rs 614 crore for a programme that is meant to provide six essential services, including supplementary nutrition to 16 crore children under the age of six, across the country. In real terms, therefore, the paltry increase does not factor in even the food inflation.

Similarly, children in schools across the country will not be able to get either the quantity or the quality of food provided in the previous year, with the proposed increase of Rs 940 crore, which is less than 10% of last year's budget in a year that has seen food inflation of a much higher order. How does the FM propose to explain the cuts to children who have seen their dals go watery and who get half the number of eggs in their meals compared to the previous year?

In the same session of Parliament, while the prime minister announced the intent of the government to launch the ambitious National Food Security Bill, his FM allocated Rs 27 crore less this year in the budget for the food subsidy than the revised estimate of the previous year!

But, it is in the allocations in the agricultural sector that the FM drives home the intent of the government for non-inclusive growth. It's a self-defeating exercise of allocating Rs 300 crore each for programmes on developing pulses in 60,000 villages, bringing 60,000 hectares under palm oil production, creating vegetable clusters near urban centres, promoting millets in 25,000 villages and so on and so forth.

By way of explanation for the magical figure of Rs 300 crore for each of these initiatives , the FM explained in his Budget speech that "the number 3 happens to be my lucky number" . The joke would not have been on the Indian farmer, crushed by the agrarian crisis, if he had stuck to his lucky number and added three, instead of two zeroes , and allocated Rs 3,000 crore to each of these sectors. The FM remained oblivious to the fact that in the time he took to deliver his Budget speech, five farmers in India committed suicide. What else can explain the net cutback of Rs 5,868 crore in agricultural subsidies that he went on to propose?

To add insult to injury, the FM increased the "subsidies" to the corporate sector in the form of revenues foregone by Rs 34,652 crore over last year, taking the revenues foregone in this budget to a whopping Rs 5,36,881 crore. That "India Shining" has been replaced by "India Dazzling" is evident from the fact that the tax exemptions for the jewellery and precious stones sector has been increased by Rs 9,029 crore and now stands at Rs 48,798 crore.

Compare this with the pride the FM took in announcing the effective cut of subsidies to the poor by Rs 22,751 crore in this Budget as against the revised estimates of the previous year, and the intent of the "aam admi" government becomes clearer.

With this Budget, Pranab Mukherjee has truly lived up to the ideal that UPA II has set for itself: Never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

(Biraj Patnaik is principal adviser to the Commissioners of the Supreme Court in the Right to Food Case. The views are personal)