The civil rights network, National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM), has called the Union Budget 2024-25 "an assault on people, ecology and economy of India", underlining, it has prioritised corporates and would lead to pauperization of the common people. In statement signed by senior activists, NAPM said, it "joins" other movements across India in calling out and condemning the extremely anti-people nature of the Union Budget.
"The approach reflected in the budget, along with the wrong priorities, demonstrates the unjust foundations of this regime and the criminal neglect of large sections of our population", said NAPM, adding, "It has the potential to severely harm the environment, along with adversely affecting the lives and livelihood of millions of ordinary people, especially from working class, socially vulnerable and natural-resource dependent communities."
The above table (Source: India Employment Report 2024 (ILO) and Economic Survey 2024; numbers don’t add up to 100, as unpaid family workers are counted among self-employed) shows that a significant segment of our workforce is made up of unpaid workers (18.3%). They are followed by casual workers who comprise 21.8% whose real average earnings have increased by only 2.4% since 2012 and stand at 4,712 (for 2022). 57.3% of the workforce is self-employed. These workers have no form of social security and low wages compared to regular salaried workers (20.9%), whose wages have declined by 0.7% in real terms since 2012. Furthermore, nearly 56 million (10% of total) workers have re-joined agriculture since the disastrous lockdowns. With declining wages and low productivity in agriculture, this shows this reverse migration is a sign of extreme distress in the labour market.
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National Alliance of People’s Movements, joins all other movements across India in calling out and condemning the extremely anti-people nature of the Union Budget. The approach reflected in the budget, along with the wrong priorities demonstrates the unjust foundations of this regime and the criminal neglect of large sections of our population. Furthermore, it has the potential to severely harm the environment, along with adversely affecting the lives and livelihood of millions of ordinary people, especially from working class, socially vulnerable and natural-resource dependent communities.
On 23rd July, 2024, the Union Finance Minister, Ms. Nirmala Sitaraman presented the budget for the year 2024-25. The budget comes at a time when the rising inequalities across the country are at an all-time high, with household savings hitting a record low at 5.2% and household debt levels rising to an all-time high of 5.7%. Similarly, the Ministry of Agriculture reports a steep decline in real agricultural wages of 1.25% over the past decade. Around 750+ farmers lost their lives, protesting the lack of implementation and guarantee of MSP on their produce as per the @C2+50 formula, seeking repeal of the Electricity Act Amendment Bill, 2023, along with other demands. This, in addition to the thousands of farmers' ‘suicides’ taking place across the country, annually. On the other hand, the past decade of Modi Government’s rule has seen an unprecedented rise in unemployment, the highest in the last 50 years, falling of real wages and a reversal of structural transformation in the labour market in recent years.
Negligence in the social sector is very serious and will severely impact access to basics for the majority of Indians:
The budget does not take into account the current socio-economic situation of people across the country. It has not raised allocation of the social sector this year, with programmes such as MNREGA, ICDS, Garib Kalyan Anna Yojna, and various funds on health and education stuck at roughly the same levels of funding as in the previous fiscal year. MNREGA, a lifeline for millions of rural workers, which saw increased demand earlier in the year, sees its lowest fund allocation in the last 10 years at 1.78% of total budgetary allocations. In a country where 80% of the population relies on government-subsidized food, shockingly the food subsidy amount was reduced by 3.3% over the previous year. These cuts come at a time when food inflation stands at 7.5%, a 97% increase in the last two years.
There have also been consistent fund cuts in schemes such as old age pension, widow pension, Ayushman Bharat, Swasthya Suraksha, and PM-POSHAN, which provide a lifeline for the poor and marginalised in the country. Similarly, the health sector is largely ignored in the budget, with complete disregard for the people. The share of the health sector in the union budget was given a minimal increase of 1.7%, but the overall expenditure on health is still less than 2% of GDP, lower than China (7%), Nepal (5%), Sri Lanka (4%) and even Bangladesh (2.3%). Even as the Covid-19 pandemic exposed the severe shortcomings in our healthcare infrastructure, it is condemnable that this government continues to starve the critical sector of much needed funds that could build new hospitals, primary, secondary and tertiary care centres and train more doctors and medical staff.
Dalit, adivasi organizations have pointed out that out of the total Union Budget, only 3.43% is allocated for Scheduled Castes and 2.74 % for Scheduled Tribes, exposing again the anti-dalit, anti-adivasi nature of the government, which has hugely prioritized corporate interests in the budget. The budget also does no meaningful justice to crucial needs of vulnerable communities be it persons with disabilities, transgender persons, minorities etc, all of who are equal contributors to our economy.
A budget towards more centralisation and corporatisation of agriculture, coupled with the cuts in subsidies, will further aggravate rural distress:
The Union Budget once again ignores farmers' demands and gears towards the corporatisation of agriculture with a clear incentive of maximising profit for agribusiness. The funds allocated for crop husbandry have been reduced massively by 24.7 %. Similarly, there is a decline of 34.7% in the allocation of funds for fertilisers, amounting to a total decline of Rs. 87,238 crores. Their rampant fund cuts will severely aggregate rural distress and greatly impact agricultural productivity. While ignoring the current crisis and demands of the people, the Finance Minister blatantly lied by saying that the government is providing MSP at more than the 50% cost of production, when in fact the MSP provided by the government is lower than C2+50%.
The Union Budget paves the way for further centralisation and infringes on the federal rights of the State governments, with the introduction of a National Cooperation Policy aimed at bringing all the cooperatives under the control of the union government. NAPM opposes this move towards centralisation as it is a clear violation of the federal rights of the states as per our Constitution. The government also plans to implement Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) for agricultural coverage and tracking of farmers and their lands. The budget introduces the Bhu-Aadhar as an identification number of the land registry. NAPM demands public scrutiny of the policies on the road towards digitisation, often leading to exclusion, resulting in people losing jobs and livelihoods. This can also open the door for corporations to grab land and commit other frauds against common people.
Collapsing education sector, rising unemployment and ‘internships’ as employment opportunities - a move towards contractual labour:
Public education has been in a state of total collapse for the past decades with regular fund cuts and an aggressive push for privatisation with the introduction of the New Education Policy and the creation of HEFA. The demand for allocation of a mere 6% of the GDP in education, recommended by the Kothari Commission in 1966, has been ignored for decades. Over the years, the Modi government has consistently drained funds for education with the allocation of Rs 47,619 crore in 2024-25, with a nominal increase from budget estimates of 2023-24. However, the amount is Rs 9, 091 crore less than the revised estimates for 2023-24 resulting in a sharp decline of 7.26% when compared with previous revised estimates of Rs 1,29,718 crore is indefensible. Government’s own data in recent years reveals worrying trends.
Paying lip service to unemployed youth, the Finance Minister has introduced the ‘paid internship scheme’, which aims to target one crore youth over the next 5 yrs, providing them with govt-mandated internship opportunities across the country's top 500 companies. A monthly stipend of ₹5,000 in tow with a one-time assistance sum of ₹6,000 will be ensured for every intern. The companies will bear only 10% (or ₹6,000) of the cost, and this too will come out of Corporate Social Responsibility funds as will any funds the companies allocate towards training costs. The internship scheme aims to provide cheap labour to companies, at public expense, with no social security.
Relieving the corporate sector of making any investment on the one hand, the union government is unwilling to fill out more than 9 lakh vacancies of its own on the other. Such single-minded promotion of privatisation with utter disregard for social justice is utterly condemnable. Moreover, the Budget does not address the crisis faced by millions of youth whose lives and aspirations have been jeopardised by a plague of paper leaks and a regrettable organisation in the National Testing Agency. NAPM demands immediate filling of all vacant government posts and along with creation of secure and dignified employment for all.
There is no allocation in the Central Budget for social security of 50 crore unorganised workers in the country, who contribute 50% of GDP. 2008 Lok Sabha Standing Committee’s recommendation of 3 percent of budget allocation for social security of unorganised workers must be implemented. Platform-based gig workers are not mentioned in the budget. While a few states, such as Rajasthan and Karnataka, have introduced Bills on the protection of gig workers, the union government remains oblivious to the marginalisation and exploitation of millions of gig workers by big companies.
The budget remains silent on rivers' plight and continued degeneration, affecting the environment and millions of people. The struggle of the residents of Narmada Valley, still fighting for their rights after 40 years, symbolises the plight of countless millions whose rights have been sacrificed at the altar of neo-liberal growth benefitting a handful of people. Disregarding scientific consensus that the current floods are a developmental and infrastructural disaster, the government, rather than investing in alternatives and securing the lives of people directly affected by floods and rivers, has allocated more funds for projects like Kosi-Mecchi intra-state link and other projects of barrages and dams. These will result in more environmental and social catastrophes, as has been noticed in the Ken- Betwa River Link project case. It is shocking that India, one of the most severely impacted countries by the climate crisis, is not investing in climate action and resilience building. For the urban areas too, the focus is primarily on an unsustainable growth model, instead of adopting a more inclusive and ecologically just approach.
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Relieving the corporate sector of making any investment on the one hand, the union government is unwilling to fill out more than 9 lakh vacancies of its own on the other. Such single-minded promotion of privatisation with utter disregard for social justice is utterly condemnable. Moreover, the Budget does not address the crisis faced by millions of youth whose lives and aspirations have been jeopardised by a plague of paper leaks and a regrettable organisation in the National Testing Agency. NAPM demands immediate filling of all vacant government posts and along with creation of secure and dignified employment for all.
There is no allocation in the Central Budget for social security of 50 crore unorganised workers in the country, who contribute 50% of GDP. 2008 Lok Sabha Standing Committee’s recommendation of 3 percent of budget allocation for social security of unorganised workers must be implemented. Platform-based gig workers are not mentioned in the budget. While a few states, such as Rajasthan and Karnataka, have introduced Bills on the protection of gig workers, the union government remains oblivious to the marginalisation and exploitation of millions of gig workers by big companies.
Total neglect of the environment and of climate crisis and its threats, both present and future:
The Budget is massively mute on environmental concerns. The last two months recorded extreme heatwaves, resulting in the loss of lives of hundreds of vulnerable and marginalised people. With the ever-increasing threat of climate catastrophe, the government has no vision to tackle and invest in capacity building for communities and people to tackle the present and future threats. Rather than investing in alternative capacity-building projects, the budget promotes environmentally hazardous projects like building more nuclear reactors. Without concern of its risks, the Budget has allocated Rs. 2,228 crores (up from Rs. 442 crores in 2023-24) for nuclear power projects across the country. This includes setting up of Bharat Small Reactors, research & development of Bharat Small Modular Reactor, and R&D of nuclear technologies with the involvement of private corporations.The budget remains silent on rivers' plight and continued degeneration, affecting the environment and millions of people. The struggle of the residents of Narmada Valley, still fighting for their rights after 40 years, symbolises the plight of countless millions whose rights have been sacrificed at the altar of neo-liberal growth benefitting a handful of people. Disregarding scientific consensus that the current floods are a developmental and infrastructural disaster, the government, rather than investing in alternatives and securing the lives of people directly affected by floods and rivers, has allocated more funds for projects like Kosi-Mecchi intra-state link and other projects of barrages and dams. These will result in more environmental and social catastrophes, as has been noticed in the Ken- Betwa River Link project case. It is shocking that India, one of the most severely impacted countries by the climate crisis, is not investing in climate action and resilience building. For the urban areas too, the focus is primarily on an unsustainable growth model, instead of adopting a more inclusive and ecologically just approach.
- In the context of the adversity faced by the people suffering with rising inflation, massive unemployment, stagnation in real wages, and collapsing infrastructure, the budget presented by the finance minister with Garib (poor) Mahila (women) Yuva (youth) and Annadata (farmers) as their primary targets (wrongly called as ‘4 castes’), deceives and betrays all of them.
- The budget presented should be seen in continuity with the past budgets under the Modi Govt. as an attack on social welfare, aimed at serving big businesses and snatching any social security provided to the poor and marginalised by cutting off funds and drying up the livelihood schemes such as MNREGA and Poshan Abhiyan to name a few.
- The budget prioritises the corporate profits over the needs of all other sections of the population, especially the poor and marginalised; while increasing individual income tax which hurts the middle class and restricting funding for welfare schemes which squeezes the poor. The budget continues the trend of providing tax relief to corporations (such as slashing corporate foreign tax by 5%) even as their share of Gross Tax Revenue continues to fall.
- With utter disregard for the vast majority of people, the Union Budget indicates that Modi 3.0 continues to be a ‘Suit-Boot ki Sarkaar’. The Government’s anti-people policies get exposed with rising mass movements across the country. The budget also appears to be politically motivated and targeted at maintaining the ruling NDA coalition, of which Bihar and Andhra Pradesh states are being given a major share.
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