-IANS Kolkata: Lack of policy directions for ensuring quality implementation of programmes makes the Union Budget 2017-18 allocations to ailing core social sectors like education and health inadequate in delivering the benefits, experts say. Schemes like Swachh Bharat-Urban and the National Social Assistance Programme saw no increase, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan got a mere 4.4 per cent rise in allocation, while the Integrated Child Development Services got an enhancement of about five per...
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Before Universal Basic Income, We Must First Get Social Spending Basics Right -Anjana Thampi and Ishan Anand
-TheWire.in The Economic Survey 2016-17 devotes a chapter to the provision of a Universal Basic Income (UBI), describing it as a “raging new idea,” a “radical new vision” and “the shortest path to eliminating poverty”. While warning that the UBI “should not become the Trojan horse that usurps the fiscal space for a well-functioning state,” the survey says a de facto UBI can be instituted in the existing “fiscal space”. It...
More »Getting a handle on water for agriculture use -Ashok Gulati & Gayathri Mohan
-The Indian Express In Budget 2017-18, a sum of Rs 7,377 crore has been allocated to the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana, a 42 per cent jump over the revised estimates for FY17. India is home to 17.5 per cent of the world’s population, but has only 4 per cent of the fresh water resources. Agriculture consumes some 78 per cent of the fresh water supply. With increasing urbanisation and industrialisation, India...
More »Share of spend in government expenditure, GDP on education falling for 3 years -Subodh Varma
-The Times of India Spending on education as a share of the central government's total budgeted expenditure has been falling for the past three years. Compared to 2013-14, the last year of UPA, when education got 4.57% of the total expenditure, there has been a steady decline — 3.65% in 2016-17, according to this Budget's revised estimate, with the estimated outlay for the coming year showing a minor uptick at 3.71%. Looking...
More »Modi Government's Budgetary Allocation for MNREGA Is Barely an Increase
-TheWire.in Two supplementary MNREGA allocations were made by the government last year. This means, there’s only a 1%, not 25%, actual increase in this year’s Budget. New Delhi: The finance minister claimed that this year’s Budget allocations for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) were a new “record”, at Rs 48,000 crore. But is this really a substantial increase? And, more importantly, is it enough? The 2016-17 Budget had...
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