The Economic Survey 2013-14, expected to lay out the new government’s economic vision, sends mixed messages on welfare spending.
In its chapter on human development, the survey reiterates the government’s commitment to continue social sector spending, but also speaks of a new impetus to growth and “targeted policies aimed at both social and financial inclusion.”
The government seems set to restructure the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), the UPA government’s flagship rural jobs programme, saying in one place that the scheme has not raised agricultural productivity but has led to labour shortages and wage and price inflation.
In another section, the survey lists the scheme as one of those which need a revamp, saying there is a need to move away from “saturated” community projects to individual work on farms. In some places, the scheme is taken up only by women, “resulting in only small works of lesser utility being undertaken instead of big and tangible projects,” the survey says.
“The MGNREGS has indeed led to a reduction in the exploitation of rural workers. There is, however, no reason to believe that it raised either wages on the whole or led to inflation,” Nikhil Dey, labour rights activist of Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan, said.
The survey calls for a “zero-budgeting approach”, which will involve outlays being re-evaluated every year depending on the performance and demand from the previous year. “This is a favourite of American management consultants. What it is, is a denial of the rights-based approach,” a former adviser to the Planning Commission, said.
“This government speaks in many voices. On the one hand, they insisted to me in Parliament today [Wednesday] that schemes like MGNREGS will not be touched. On the other hand, its own members want to do away with portions of the jobs scheme, the Land Acquisition Act and the Forest Rights Act,” former Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh told The Hindu .
