Union budget 2025 tells less and hides more!
The contribution of the agriculture sector to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has increased. Along with this, it is a notable fact that the dependence of 2% people on the agriculture sector has increased, because before the Corona period, 44% people used to work in this sector, now their number has increased to 46% and this has happened due to reverse migration from cities to villages. Given this situation, more allocation is needed in agriculture and allied activities, but only Rs 3,71,687 crore has been allocated, whereas last year Rs 3,76,720 crore was allocated. If rising inflation is taken into account, this cut is more than 6%.
Similarly, the fund of MNREGA has been kept constant at Rs 86000 crore, while wages and loan amount of more than Rs 11000 crore will be paid from this. So this time again, in MNREGA item, taking inflation into account, a cut of more than 17% comes to the fore, whereas MNREGA is considered the ‘lifeline of rural India’. By the way, BJP’s enmity towards MNREGA is not hidden from anyone.
Pradhan Mantri Bima Yojana and Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi are the most publicized schemes of this government, but even in the insurance scheme, Rs 3622 crore has been cut. According to calculations based on inflation, this cut is more than 26%. There has also been no increase in the allocation of Kisan Samman Nidhi, while crores of farmers are still outside the scope of this scheme. This scheme was implemented in the year 2019 and since then only Rs 500 per month is being given to the farmers included in this scheme, while inflation has increased by more than 35% in the last six years.
In our country, fertilizer subsidy allocation for farmers is a significant part of the budget. We are highly dependent on imports in this regard and farmers always face fertilizer crisis during the farming season. Despite this, fertilizer subsidy has been reduced from Rs 171299 crore to Rs 167887 crore. This reduction of Rs 3412 crore is equivalent to 7% in real terms. This will affect the food grain self-sufficiency of our country. Similarly, food grain subsidy has also been reduced drastically this time as well, like every time. This will have a direct impact on the public distribution system, because despite the promotion of free food grains, crores of people will be deprived of the availability of cheap food grains. This step of the Modi government will push us further down in the Global Hunger Index.
So what is there for farmers? There is Pradhan Mantri Dhan Dhanya Yojana, for which no budget has been allocated! There is 100% FDI in the insurance sector, which means complete privatization of the insurance sector. There is an announcement to organize farmers into FPOs, which means moving towards corporatization of agriculture.
In fact, the way this government is giving tax exemptions to the corporates, waiving their bank loans and refusing to impose property tax and inheritance tax on them, it has no way left to increase its revenue collection. With this limited revenue, there will be populist announcements for the general public, which will have no connection with the budget allocation and the corporates will have a free hand to loot the wealth of this country, about which the budget will never tell. This is actually a budget made by the corporates to facilitate the looting of the corporates, which the Modi government has presented through the mouth of Nirmala Sitharaman.
