TOPIC : A message aimed
at the heart of India.
Stung
by the criticism of being a suit boot ki sarkar and by the National Democratic
Alliance’s electoral reverses in Bihar, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has made
bold to address the perception deficit in announcing a raft of proposals aimed at the rural sector and
farmers. From a cess of 0.5 per cent on all taxable services that would
expressly be used to finance improvements in agriculture and schemes to benefit
farmers, to a dedicated long-term irrigation fund with a corpus of Rs.20,000
crore, the Union Budget seeks to pave the
path for making good Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s promise to double farm
incomes by 2022. Other measures to further this course include an outlay of
Rs.19,000 crore that the Central government will spend this year on rural roads
as part of its goal to ensure that all habitations are connected by 2019, and a
push to achieve universal village electrification in the next two years.
Between improved road connectivity and the availability of electricity, the
potential is significant for a multiplier effect on the rural economy and
improvements to the quality of life for residents of the hinterland. Two more steps are noteworthy. The
Budget proposes the introduction of a health insurance scheme that would provide
up to Rs.1 lakh as coverage against hospitalisation costs for economically weak
households, with senior citizens above the age of 60 eligible for another
Rs.30,000 in top-up cover. While the sum offered as protection is low by most
standards for contemporary critical in-hospital care, especially in the private
sector, for the indigent this could well
mean the difference between not even attempting to seek medical care and a
chance at surviving a debilitating
illness. The other, equally laudable, initiative is to provide all families below the
poverty line with cooking gas. This can afford those in underprivileged homes the dignity of a quicker and
less harmful way to keep their kitchen fires running.
From a larger macroeconomic
perspective, Mr. Jaitley has for now said he will stick to his prior fiscal
deficit commitments, but he has simultaneously flagged the need for more
flexibility in dealing with situations when overall economic conditions are
unfavourable. For this he has proposed the setting up of a committee to review
the entire road map mandated by the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management
Act of 2003 to study the possibility of having a target range instead of fixed
numbers that would give the government the needed policy space to align a fiscal expansion or contraction with
credit availability. For the individual tax payer, the Budget offers little to
cheer, save some tax sops that lower and
middle income families can leverage to
invest in affordable housing, or squirrel away some more cash from an increase
in the deduction towards house rent. The salaried class is likely to feel hard
done by a move to tax 60 per cent of the corpus created from contributions to
the Employees’ Provident Fund starting April 1 as part of a move to create a ‘pensioned
society’. With elections to five provincial Assemblies due this year, Mr. Jaitley’s focus on the
rural and agrarian communities is clear
proof that the Budget still retains its relevance as a powerful messaging tool
of a government’s political stances.
Whether Budget 2016 will engender a harvest of votes, only time will tell.
VOCABULARY:
1.Stung : aroused to impatience or anger.
2.perception : a
way of conceiving something.
3.deficit : the
property of being an amount by which something is less than expected or
required.
4.raft : (often
followed by `of') a large number or amount or extent.
5.pave : a setting
with precious stones so closely set that no metal shows.
6.hinterland : a
remote and undeveloped area.
7.indigent : poor
enough to need help from others.
8.debilitating :
impairing the strength and vitality.
9.laudable :
worthy of high praise.
10.underprivileged : lacking the rights and advantages of other members of society.
11.align : place
in a line or arrange so as to be parallel or straight.
12.sops : piece of
solid food for dipping in a liquid.
13.leverage : the
mechanical advantage gained by being in a position to use a lever.
14.provincial : (Roman Catholic
Church) an official in charge of an ecclesiastical province acting under the
superior general of a religious order.
15.agrarian : relating to rural matters.
16.stances :the
way in which someone stands, especially when deliberately adopted (as in
cricket, golf, and other sports); a person's posture.
