The gap between the people's aspirations and what the union budget 2011-2012 portends is prosaically mile-wide, according to the Centre for Budget and Government Accountability (CBGA).

While the budget has paid some attention to agirculture, infrastructure and climate change, it still fails to address most of the social sector demands.

“The total budget outlay for social sectors (excluding only non-plan capital expenditure on such sectors, which is usually very small and sporadic), has gone down from 1.9 percent of GDP in 2009-10 to 1.8 percent of GDP in 2011-12,” said the study paper, giving the budget a thumbs-down from the social sector prespective.

It said that the outlays for education, health and food security are inadequate when seen in the light of the deficits in development outcomes.

The CBGA observed that government seems to have turned a blind eye to social sector concerns while focusing on fiscal consolidation and high economic growth. “The union budget contributing funds worth only two percent of GDP for social sectors (such as education, health, water and sanitation), the country’s total budgetary spending on these sectors would continue to be less than 7 percent of GDP in 2009-10, whereas the average figure for social sector spending by the OECD countries is as high as 14 percent of the GDP,” the study said.

The study paper has 14 sections on overall budget where the government has allocated and missed.

Read the report