At political level, the assembly elections are being held in five states in the country between February 10 and March 7, the results will be declared on March 10. It is natural that the voters in these five states have taken into account the impact of the budget on their livelihood which is certainly not positive. There is nothing concrete for the people at the vulnerable end of the Indian population. The budget certainly can not be termed populist which is generally the trend offering some sops in the election year.

Then how is it that the Prime Minister Narendra Modi with his impeccable political instinct , allowed a budget to be presented which is not going to have any direct impact on the millions of poor people in the five poll bound states. It seems that the Prime Minister and his advisers are overconfident in remaining in power and they can plan for the future spanning the Amrita Kaal of 25 years ignoring the distress of the present. It is like building a swanky multi-storeyed apartment on the base of a ground floor which has many leaks. Our Prime Minister is looking at the top floor with hope that India is joining the big league.

Prime Minister has every right to be futuristic but he could act as a visionary if he would have taken care of some of the basics including the ways to pep up public consumption in the immediate future to boost the economy on a short and medium term basis. Suggestions were given by leading economists for introducing a minimum basic income for the poor and simultaneously of imposing a sort of inequality tax on the super rich. Instead, the MGNREGA, the pivot of livelihood for rural poor and the public distribution system which ensures food security to the vulnerable, have been treated in a step motherly manner as if expansion of programmes for the poor is anti growth. Instead, the corporate taxes have been cut.

The Oxfam inequality report on India released a week before the 20222-23 budget has exposed in a candid manner how the two year pandemic has widened the inequality in the Globe including India. Specifically for India, the situation is grimmer as the present Government lacks the social security system to protect the poor and the distressed resulting in further deterioration in the livelihood of the poor. Still, the budget has effectively brought down the allocation for MGNREGA to only Rs. 73,000 crore in 2022-23 budget which is much less than the revised estimate of Rs. 98,000 crore in the current fiscal. But the fact is that all recent studies have shown how this MGNREGA programme which was the brainchild of the Congress president Sonia Gandhi, has been of big relief to the distressed in the rural areas during the last two years of pandemic. The Modi government knew it but then taking care of poor is not the priority in Modi’s list.

The PDS which is a bulwark against hunger and malnutrition in rural India, has also been given lower allocation from the revised allocation of Rs. 2,10,929 crore in 2021-22 to Rs.1,45,920 crore in 2022-23. The big hike in the investments for infrastructure is certainly welcome but the bigger half in India have to maintain their livelihood and their improvement in living conditions will lead to hike in public consumption leading to the economic growth. The Modi Government, is thus aspiring for a new economy of global dimension without taking care of the minimum essentials of the livelihood of the vulnerables.

In the last eight years, the NDA government led by Narendra Modi pursued the growth path that has only widened the inequalities and every economic crisis was taken advantage by the rich to make gains at the cost of the poor and the lower segments of the Indian society. This process intensified in the last two years of pandemic despite continuous government announcements on the so called sops to the distressed by the Modi Government.

Starting with the sudden declaration of lock down on March 24, 2020 in the first wave to the present third wave, the wage earners, the employees of the SMEs, the migrant labour and lakhs of employees of the private sector small companies have been languishing in abject poverty with job losses, layoffs and reduction of income. These were the people who also suffered under the slowdown which gripped the Indian economy from 2017 onwards. But what has happened to the Indian rich during this period? They have increased their wealth to a record level while the country’s economy as a whole suffered.

Oxfam’s annual report on inequality in India has focused on the Modi Government’s governance structures that promote the accumulation of wealth by a few, while failing to provide safety nets to the rest of the population. The report also highlighted the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the rich and the poor in India. The same approach continues in the latest budget despite so much critical mentions made by different think tanks.

The report said that by taxing just these super-rich families only 1% of their wealth, India could fund its entire vaccination programme cost of Rs 50,000 crore ($6.8 billion). “Instead, the burden of taxation in India currently rests on the shoulders of India’s middle class and the poor, and not addressing the proposal for a one-time tax on the wealthy, for COVID-19 recovery, has resulted in the government using the only other available option i.e., raising funds through indirect tax revenue which penalises the poor,” the report said.

In September 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic, the Narendra Modi government had slashed corporate tax rates for domestic manufacturers from 30% to 22%, and for new manufacturing companies, the rate was reduced from 25% to 15%, provided they do not claim any exemptions. The government took 36 hours to implement this decision, with the help of Rule 12 that empowers the prime minister to take a decision and get the cabinet’s ratification later. US-based credit ratings agency S&P Global had termed the move “credit negative”. This corporate tax cut resulted in a loss of Rs. 1.5 lakh crore contributing to the rise in India’s fiscal deficit. Thus the corporates continue to extract higher benefits from pandemic while the labour become jobless and many of these affected people commit suicide.

The Modi Government has no inhibition now in pursuing the growth path of Indian economy in the interests of the big corporates and the crony capitalists. The BJP is taking full advantage of the division in the opposition and the weakness of the main national rival Congress to expand and consolidate its base in all parts of the country. The Party has the backing of RSS, Sangh Parivar’s hate outfits and the financial muscle power. The Opposition through its joint action, unity of purpose and pro-people programme, can only combat the challenge of the ruling party. The BJP has shown which side it has chosen, the combined opposition can only fight the BJP and Narendra Modi by choosing the side of the common people. (IPA Service)