Mr. Modi’s war on welfare

[prasad1]

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The Hindu
Practical reason: “Mr. Modi doesn’t like rights-based entitlements such as MGNREGA as they cannot be subjected to fiscal tyranny.” Picture shows MGNREGA workers in Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu.
[h=2]The Modi government is determined to dismantle the two-pronged welfare paradigm.[/h]
It is now an established fact that one area where the Narendra Modi administration has acted with a sense of purpose, urgency and resolve is in slashing social expenditure. Be it education, health, agriculture, livelihood security, food security, panchayati raj institutions, drinking water or the Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes sub-plan, central government funds earmarked for social protection have been cut.
The cutbacks have been so drastic that one of NDA’s own Cabinet members, Maneka Gandhi, the Minister for Women and Child Development, felt compelled to write a dissenting note to the Finance Minister. According to the estimates doing the rounds, the overall reductions in social sector spending add up to about Rs. 1.75 lakh crore.
No Indian Prime Minister has ever launched such a full frontal attack on the welfare state that India, for a brief period, has tried to be, or some might say, pretended to be. Considering that the biggest beneficiaries of these schemes were the poor and the marginalised — typically dismissed as vote banks responsible for the political nuisance of populism — Mr. Modi deserves full credit for this achievement, the most noteworthy of his first year in office.
But these cuts in social spending tell only half the story. We need to look at the other half — what he wants to replace the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, the Public Distribution System, and all the other existing social provisions with — to get the rest.
Social security that isn’tThe ruling party’s spokespersons, in response to the charges levelled by the Opposition that their government is anti-poor, have been pointing to the social security initiatives launched by the NDA including the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana, the Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana, the Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana and the Atal Pension Yojana.
If anyone wants to find out how pro-poor the NDA administration really is, all they need to do is to compare the provisions of the social expenditures it wants out, such as the MGNREGA, with the ones it is pushing. The larger design becomes immediately apparent.
The MGNREGA and the Food Security Act (which governs the Integrated Child Development Services, PDS and the Midday Meal programmes) are both rights-based social provisions. The MGNREGA legally recognises the citizen’s right to demand work as a right, and if the state cannot deliver 100 days of work in a financial year, it has to provide unemployment allowance.
Similarly, while it may come as a shock to economists imported from Washington DC, many people in this country hold the bizarre belief that it would be difficult to stay alive without food — which is why the FSA makes food a citizen’s right.
The NDA’s various Pradhan Mantri Yojanas, in contrast, put the onus of social security on those who lack it the most — the poor themselves.
Modi government is determined to dismantle the two-pronged welfare paradigm - The Hindu

 

[prasad1]

This is precisely why all of India’s rights-based legislations — the right to work, the right to food, the right to education, and the right to information represent a huge achievement for Indian democracy. They symbolize the triumph of politics over blind monetarism. And today, they form the legislative edifice on which the social and economic aspirations of a vast majority of Indians rest.
But the Modi dispensation — like the one that preceded it — is also under pressure to kowtow to the dogma of fiscal rectitude. Yet fiscal discipline is not the only agenda behind the savage spending cuts in its very first year. The aim is also to prepare the ground for fundamentally altering the default settings of social welfare in India — from a rights-based one that honours the dignity of the poor, to a paternalistic one that will push thousands more of the landless poor into a debt trap, depress rural wages, and make them ever more dependant on government charity, and at the brutal mercy of the unorganised labour market.
At the end of the day, all that the average Indian asks of the state are basic amenities for a life of dignity, not life insurance. It is doubtful, however, if this expectation will much impress our ‘tough love’ Prime Minister.
Modi government is determined to dismantle the two-pronged welfare paradigm - The Hindu

 

[Vaagmi]

The disclaimer: This is not in reply to any member here. This is about what The Hindu has to say which has been just copy pasted here.

These are just counter points pulled out from the heap of dungs called Indian politics and they emanate from the mud-hole called Chennai in Bharat-and not from any twice born whiteman's habitat :

1. Mount Road Mahavishnu-to borrow a term from the Dravidian crowd- has as usual carefully presented with photograph a blatant lie as the gospel truth. It has very efficiently hidden the glaring truth that MGNREGA has become a means to fill up the pockets of politicians down to the panchayat member level. The muster roles maintained are just ghost lists. They contain many times the numbers actually employed under the programme and the payments go to fill the pockets of politicians. All that the politicians want is "just give me welfare programme and I will convert it into a cash cow for my and my concubine's welfare. You should just turn a blind eye to what is happening. do not worry about your Govt. auditors they will get their meticulously maintained records and the total payments will always tally with the number of peoples in the list. and be happy with that."

2. When this was happening in the cooking gas at subsidised rates, an essential for women folk who toil in the kitchen, the Government brought in the direct credit system and in one stroke the thousands of gas cylinders that were going to industries and trade at subsidised rate were made a thing of the past. Is this a welfare measure or a cutback measure?

3. The day is not far off when the old age pension-a social security measure- will also find that the direct credit route has taken away the middle men from the picture. Jandhan is the basic building block on which these innovative measures will revolve and so the thrust for the bank accounts. It is a very thoughtful initiative to factor in the UIDAI's aadhaar numbers for identity and the jandhan accounts for direct credit to ensure the plugging of the huge hole through which the Govt's welfare funds were getting drained. Photographs speak only one side of the story. The Hindu needs to tell its reporters to go and take a few photographs of the politicians who were feeding on the Govt. funds and the photos of their concubines and their healthy bastard children.

4. If the default settings are found to be useless, they need to be changed and fresh settings are to be made. They do not become untouchable holy cows as they are meant for so called untouchables.

5. Fiscal rectitude is used all over the world by Governments in times of inflationary pressure. Fiscal rectitude, rate cut, cut in SLR CRR etc., are all macro economic measures which are levers of management available to Government to manage the economy. This is all about the demand side of the economy. The supply side is managed by other active measures. These macro instruments are implemented through a hundred micro level steps. The Hindu's reporter is obviously blind to this awareness of the mechanism.

6. The right to work, food, education and information have not been taken away or curtailed. They have been only made more meaningful. The Hindu may be the source of all wisdom for someone but it is not for many others. Period.

 

[sarang]

The hindu was never right in its views, opinions and predictions. It is not likely to change till oxford-JNU communist mindset at the top steps down at the age of 65 or the next generation takes over and overhauls in toto. That too may not happen because middle east funds already invested have a large say in policies.

 

[sarang]

Budget 2015: Has social sector spending increased? ​

Someone is getting the facts twisted. Analysts can sort out. In the end what the farmer gets in hand is more important!

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FIRST PUBLISHED: SAT, FEB 28 2015.
The budget has allotted more to the social sector with Rs.79,526 crore for rural development, including MGNREGA and Rs.5,000 crore based on need.

​New Delhi: It seems budget 2015 has allotted more to the social sector. With [FONT=Utopia Std_Rupee]Rs.79,526 crore for rural development, including the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) allocated in the budget and an additional allocation of [FONT=Utopia Std_Rupee]Rs.[/FONT]5,000 crore based on need.[/FONT]
In the previous budget, an allocation of [FONT=Utopia Std_Rupee]Rs.83,793 crore had been made to the ministry of rural development which includes MGNREGA, Pradhan Mantri Grahmin Sadak Yojana and rural works.[/FONT]
“The government has decided to continue supporting important national priorities such as agriculture, education, health, MGNREGA, and rural infrastructure including roads. Programmes targeted for the poor and the under-privileged, will be continued by us,” said finance minister Arun Jaitley.

Budget 2015: Has social sector spending increased? ? - Livemint

 

[Vaagmi]

So we should stop reading The Hindu. LOL.