At a time when the Centre is drawing flak over unemployment among educated youth, the Interim Budget 2024-25 decreased allocations to the Labour Ministry on Thursday. The Atmanirbhar Bharat Rojgar Yojana, a pet scheme of the Narendra Modi government, which had an allocation of ₹2,272 crore in the last Budget has got just ₹150 crore in the Interim Budget. The total allocation for the Ministry is ₹12,531.47 crore, compared with ₹13,221.73 crore in the last Budget.
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The allocation for social security schemes for workers come down to ₹11,520.29 crore from ₹12,152.82 crore in the last Budget. The allocation for Pradhan Mantri Shram Yogi Maandhan, a scheme meant for old age protection and social security of unorganised workers was cut down by half to ₹177.24 crore and the Pradhan Mantri Karam Yogi Maandhan, a similar pension scheme for small retailers, traders and businessmen was given just ₹1 lakh.
Allocation to National Child Labour Project including grants in aid to voluntary agencies and reimbursement of assistance to bonded labour decreased to ₹6 crore from ₹20 crore in the last budget. Among the social security schemes, the Employees Pension Scheme, run by the Employees Provident Fund Organisation, saw a marginal increase.
While in her Budget speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said her government had created more employment and entrepreneurship opportunities, Trade Unions refuted this claim. The Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) said the Interim Budget is a bunch of lies and a desperate attempt to privatisation. “It is an attempt to come back to power by claiming that the average income of people has increased by 50% and inflation is moderate, which is a myth, while the reality is otherwise with rising prices of essential commodities and unemployment across the nation. The International Labour Organisation report has unravelled falling real wages across the world including India and UN report on Poverty Index ranking has exposed the performance of India as worst of the times. Interim Budget instead of infusing confidence in the people struggling to make ends meet has only made cruel fun of reality,” said CITU general secretary Tapan Sen.