While offering some populist sops to the social sector, the union budget for the next fiscal year has failed the aspirations and concerns of the citizens, says the New Delhi-based think tank Centre for Budget and Government Accountability (CBGA). The budget fails to address the price rise and inflation issues, and promise sonly marginal hike in spending on key development sectors, the think tank maintained on Monday.

“Several key areas have been given scant attention even though the country has made a fairly encouraging recovery after the economic recession,” CBGA said.

Holding budget allocations for thesocial sector as insufficient, the CBGA said, “The outlay for plan expenditure on social sectors shows an increase from Rs. 127,416 crore in 2010-11 (Revised Estimates) to Rs. 145113 crore in 2011-12 (Budget Estimates), but that for non-plan revenue expenditure on social sectors registers a sharp decline from Rs. 35,085 crore to Rs. 20,862 crore.”

The CBGA said that the government should have given more emphasis four key areas of teh social sector - education, health, water and sanitation. The education sector has seen a marginal increase from the last year. The total allocation for education in 2011-12 (BE) stands at 0.71 percent of GDP, which is slightly better than the 0.69 percent for 2010-11 (RE). “Despite its promises, it seems the government has hardly addressed concerns relating to financing the Right to Education Act,” said Pooja Parvati, research coordinator of CBGA.

Even the health sector has not cornered much in this budget. “Allocations for the flagship National Rural Health Mission have shown a slight increase from Rs. 15,037 crore , 2010-11 (RE) to Rs. 17,924.76 crore, 2011-12 (BE) which is an increase of 19 percentage points.”

The positive step by the finance minister, according to the CBGA is on the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY), which has been extended to include unorganised sector workers in hazardous mining and associated industries like slate and slate pencil, dolomite, mica and asbestos etc

India lags in rural water supply and sanitation, which is a major area of concern in the health sector. “An increase of less than 5 percent in the budget for rural water and sanitation is perhaps a reflection of the waning commitment of the government for this sector”, commented Subrat Das, executive director of CBGA.

The one hundred percent increase of remuneration of anganwadi workers and anganwadi helpers, however, a laudable step by the government, he added.
The budget was poor on gender responsiveness, the think tank held. “Allocations for many important women specific schemes such as Swadhar, Priyadarshini, support for training and employment programme etc. have declined from the previous year, while allocation for the National Mission for Empowerment of Women remains stagnant. The overall allocation for ministry of women and child development has registered an increase of only 13 percent,” CBGA added.

The ‘inclusive growth’ agenda by the UPA government has not been properly covered in the budget. “The minorities in particular have not been given due attention in this budget, with the ministry of minority affairs (MMA) getting Rs. 2850 crore in 2011-12 (BE) as compared to Rs. 2600 crore in 2010-11 (BE),” CBGA noted.

The think tank commented that the budget promotes UPA’s conservative fiscal policy. However, it also welcomed government’s initiative on paying attention to the problems of the ‘black money.’