A coalition of civil society activits has criticized the Union Budget 2023-24 for reducing government spending on the social sector by a massive amount. The economic crisis induced by the Covid-19 pandemic was borne disproportionately by those at the bottom of the pyramid and in this context spending on social protection schemes such as the Public Distribution System, anganwadis, pensions and MGNREGA is especially important. But the Government of India has...

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), National Food Security Act (NFSA) are schemes whose allocations have been cut drastically in Budget 2023-24, while the Mid-Day Meals budget has also seen a sharp drop. An analysis by the Accountability Initiative (AI) at the Centre for Policy Research reveals that in the case of NREGA and NFSA, the reduction has been over 30 percent! The budget for Mid-Day meals...

- Deepanshu Mohan, Soumya Marri, Bilquis Calcuttawala, Malhaar Kasodekar, Aniruddh Bhaskaran and Hemang Sharma A pre-budget deep dive by the Centre for New Economic Studies (CNES) Infosphere team has come up with some interesting takeaways. The analysis has looked at past macroeconomic and budget trends to set the tone for Budget 2023-24. They do this by looking at capital and revenue expenditure, sectoral analysis of budget expenditure and a scheme-wise allocation...

-Newsclick.in In an open letter addressed to Nirmala Sitharaman, 51 eminent economists have flagged less contribution to NOAPS and the lack of action on ensuring maternity benefits. Several prominent economists have proposed to the Union finance ministry to increase social security pensions and make adequate provisions for maternity benefits in the 2023-24 Union Budget. In an open letter addressed to Union finance minister (FM) Nirmala Sitharaman, 51 eminent economists—including Abhijeet Singh (Stockholm School...

-The Telegraph The National Pension System is a disaster for retiring employees, says an apex body of various government unions; pension under existing scheme just 15% of that under earlier one A federation of Central government employees’ unions has written to the Cabinet Secretary to restore the Old Pension Scheme (OPS), stating that the National Pension System (NPS) is a disaster for retiring employees in their old age. The federation said a Defence...