-Scroll.in Already 21 states have no funds and pending liabilities of Rs 6359 crore – as much as 16% of the outlay. Presenting his third budget, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced an outlay of Rs 38,500 crore to the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme. This was the second consecutive year the finance minister increased the outlay for the rural works scheme, which Prime Minister Narendra Modi had last February attacked...
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Hype and reality -Jayati Ghosh
-The Indian Express The budget recognises the crisis in rural India, but allocations do not match the talk In India now, there appears to be an inverse relationship between the time finance ministers spend talking about a particular issue in their budget speeches and the amount of money they actually allocate to deal with it. This was true of former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram’s budget speeches, but incumbent FM Arun Jaitley...
More »By no means a ‘socialist’ Budget -G Sampath
-The Hindu Be it education, health, pensions for the socially vulnerable, distressed farmers, or MGNREGA, the 2016 Union Budget has nothing radical to offer. Appearances can be deceptive. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s emphasis on doubling farm incomes, rural development, and allocations for a battery of impressively named schemes for the social sector may give the impression that the right-wing NDA Government has suddenly taken a ‘socialist’ turn. The reality, however, is otherwise. Howsoever...
More »The Poor Badly Needed a Good Budget this Year. Well, They Didn’t Get It. -Bharat Dogra
-TheWire.in Jaitley said he was making a record allocation to NREGA but the increase is a modest one in real terms and is even more suspect if one considers the backlog from previous year, particularly of delayed wages While various lobbyists did what they could to keep the finance ministry well informed about their demands, one is not so sure whether the needs of the poorest and most needy sections were articulated...
More »The Union Budget’s political message -Smita Gupta
-The Hindu The Union Budget 2016-17 is also the BJP’s way of trying to woo what was always a Congress constituency – rural India. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s third budget has a clear political message: aimed at creating a “feel good” sense among farmers and the rural poor with an eye to the slew of state elections due soon, it is an attempt to change the perception that this is a pro-rich...
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