Budget 'fails to see': Actual food inflation 8-9.5%, women face brunt of massive price rise

By PK Sreemathi, Mariam Dhawale*

The All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA) has expressed its disappointment with the 2024-25 budget placed before the parliament today. The NDA government’s first full post-poll budget shows that it is in complete denial of the social reality faced by women today.

Women of this country are facing the brunt of massive price rise and unemployment. The average food inflation for this year has hovered between 8-9.5 percent. But the government and its economists have not added the food and fuel price rises to their calculation of the core inflation rate, which they say is at 3.1 percent.

Women have stopped getting jobs with decent working conditions and social security. At the same time, they have been hit hard by the persisting employment crisis in the informal sector while public expenditure on the employment generation schemes is decreasing progressively in the last one decade. This trend continues in this budget too.

The declining trend of public expenditure for welfare of ordinary citizens has continued in this budget. Total Central government expenditure as a percentage of GDP has declined from 15.24 percent in 2023-2024, to 14.74 percent in 2024-2025. This shows the withdrawal of the Central Government from its responsibility of providing basic services and furthering its policy of privatisation of all services.

The gender budget is 6.78 percent of the total expenditure, which is a marginal increase from 6.2 percent in last year’s budget. It is also not very surprising that though the allocation for the Ministry of Women and Child Development has increased by a little above 8 percent, this allocation is only 0.57 percent of the total expenditure and 0.08 percent as a proportion of the GDP. The main increases in the gender budget are in allocations for the Prime Minister Awas Yojana.

The neglect of concerns about hunger and malnutrition are reflected in continued cutbacks in total food subsidies. The food subsidy has reduced by 34.75 percent from the actual expenditure of 2022-2023. The allocations for Saksham Anganwadi and PM POSHAN programmes have reduced by 323 Crores since last year. This will adversely impact the nutritional programme for which these schemes were actually started. It shocking that the government has made no allocation under the National Food Security Act (NFSA), thereby killing the public distribution system (PDS).

This has been replaced by allocation under PMGKAY, which is reduced by Rs 6,662 crore (RE). The PDS was a legal entitlement which is now converted as charity by the government. This is violation of the NFSA which was passed to ensure food security for poor families. When the government decides to end the distribution of free grains, crores of poor families will be left at the mercy of the market.

The public expenditure on employment generation schemes has also declined, with the government, once again making inadequate allocation for the flagship Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS). In 2022-2023, the government spent about Rs 90,000 crore on this scheme, even though it made abysmally low allocation. The government was forced to increase this expenditure due to rising demand for work for rural areas.

In this budget, the scheme has been allocated Rs 86,000 crore, which is Rs 4,000 crores less than the actual expenditure of 2022-23. The allocations under The National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) have gone up marginally, but this increase in on account of credit guarantees for women’s self-help groups (SHGs). This will indirectly induce women to take more loans on interest.

The Economic Survey has claimed that women’s labour force participation rate is at an all-time high of 41 percent. This is a misleading claim because the estimate includes women who work as helpers in family enterprises, many of whom are unpaid workers.

The gender budget is 6.78% of the total expenditure, which is a marginal increase from 6.2% in last year’s budget

The falsity of the finance minister’s claim of transforming the life of street vendors, which include a large number of women, through the development of 100 haats in select cities is exposed by the 30 percent decrease in PM-SVANidhi Yojana. The need is to provide livelihood opportunities which the government has not addressed.

The expenditure on social assistance schemes, including widow pension scheme, has remained virtually the same in the last few years. The government has not taken into consideration the growth in population as well as the large increase in the number of widows after the Covid pandemic.

The expenditure on schemes for protection of women and children, and the empowerment of women, i.e., the schemes under Mission Shakti constitute only 0.067 percent of the central budget expenditure. This abysmally low allocation debunks the claims of the finance minister that hostels and creches would be expanded.

The education and health expenditures have seen marginal increases from the budget estimate of the previous year. But this does not take inflation into consideration. Also, these increases are seen in the promotion of information and communication technology (ICT) and apprenticeship and internship schemes. The emphasis is on digitalization of education. The second emphasis is on education loans and allocations for scholarships have remained stagnant in nominal terms.

This will deprive lakhs of children, especially girls, from poor families, of their right to education. In the health sector, the main emphasis is on health insurance and digital health services. There is little emphasis on expansion of health facilities and increase of medical staff or filling up of vacancies. The entire health budget is just 1.81 percent of the total expenditure.

AIDWA has decided to hold protests all over the country demanding increase in expenditure for food security, employment, social security schemes, education and health.

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*President, General Secretary, All India Democratic Women’s Association

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