Terms 2016-17 budget estimate not being spent a surgical strike on the public

The 2017-18 State budget is deceptive, underspent and depriving, claimed activists of the Right to Live campaign, who analysed various aspects of the budget.

The collective of activists found that 51 % of the 2016-17 budget estimate had not been spent and termed it surgical strike on the public. The activists found that most funds were lying unused in many sectors such as public works, water resources, food security, housing, environment, water suply and sanitation, nutrition and health. The Finance Department barely spent 1 % of the ₹25,729 crore set aside for interest payment. They also found major cuts in spending in critical sectors like health (₹12,726 crore in 2016-17 to ₹12,167 crore in 2017-18) and housing (₹3,487 crore to ₹2,978 crore).

A hike and a cut

Though the education sector saw a 15% hike in allocation, its flagship programme, Sarva Shikshan Abhiyaan, suffered a 9% cut. Social activist Sumantini Dhuru said the State was closing down schools saying that rationalisation had created multi-grade classrooms and hit the quality of education. The State’s per child funding was found to be lesser than that of the less populated Chhatisgarh.

Funding for Anganwadis under the Integrated Child Development Services scheme has been slashed 31%. The activists said this would not augur well for the State with a reported 88,000 severely malnourished children below six years of age. “The strategy seems to be to allot less funds in the original budget and then seek more funds through supplementary grants. The State would release funds on the eve of the next budget so it can’t be disbursed or used,” said Shubha Shamim, secretary of the Anganwadi Karmachari Union, which takes care of nutrition in over 2 lakh anganwadi centres in the State. Ms. Shamim said, “The State is willing to spend ₹9 per child on Take Home Rations, but refuses to spend ₹5 per child for food freshly cooked by self-help groups. The intention seems to be to kill the anganwadi system.”

The activists said while budget cuts in many social sectors were of serious concern, what was more damaging was the gross underutilisation of the alreadf low allocations. They said this “underspending epidemic” increased over the past three years and was driven by the push to convert public goods and services into market commodities through Private Public Partnerships and private sector initiatives.

The activists said the total government expenditure was just 11% of the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP), which was grossly inadequate to provide robust social services. It also found that that tax to GSDP ratio would be much improved if the State managed to recover uncollected taxes. Vishwas Utagi, convenor of the All India Bank Employees Association, said, “ About ₹18 lakh crore in loans has not been recovered from wilful defaulters and there is ₹46,000 crore tax collection deficit. All this public money could be recovered and used for welfare spending.”

The activists were also upset about the State not uploading the budget details online and delaying their analysis. They said it weakened civil society’s participation in the process.