Indian
Budget offers little to Christian community
JOHN
DAYAL
The
government of India’s annual budget for the financial year 2013-2014, a year that
may possibly see a general election, has been panned by both the political
right and the Left, but it is the religious minority that feels totally
disappointed. The Christian community is particularly impacted as even the few government
benefits are designed such as to benefit largely the Muslims, a major political
segment assiduously wooed by the government.
The
Union Budget presented to Parliament by Finance Minister Mr. P Chidambaram on
28th February has fallen far short of expectations of the Christian
community. In the preparation of the 12th Five Year Plan, which
becomes operational this year, they had forcefully sought specific mechanisms to
ensure that funds meant for them actually devolved to the needy persons and
areas in a transparent manner.
The
Budget also conclusively shows that till religious minorities get a special
component plan on the pattern of Scheduled Castes and Tribes, there will be
little actual devolution of funds for their development. While presenting the
annual general budget, finance minister P Chidambaram allocated welfare sub
plans -- Rs. 41,561 crore to the
scheduled castes and Rs. 24,598 crore to the Tribals – which cannot be diverted
and must be spent for the designated purpose.
In contrast, Government
data shows that a large component of budget allocations for religious
minorities in the past have remained unspent. There is little indication in the
budget how the government intends to ensure that the moneys are spent on the
target communities and specially to the Christian community, which has not got
its fair share of these funds. The
community must be assured that it will get its share of funding on a pro rata
basis, specially in area development schemes and scholarships.
The finance minister has
allocated Rs. 3,511 crore to the Ministry of Minority Affairs, a notional increase
of 12% over the budget estimates of last which merely compensates for the rate of inflation.
Year. The government has also allocated Rs 160 crores to the Rs 750 crore
corpus of the Maulana Azad Education Foundation, the main vehicle to implement
education schemes and channelised funds to non-government organisations for the
minorities, but this alone does not increase direct support to disadvantaged
children desirous of education.
In actual terms, only the
pre-matric scholarship sees a real increase from Rs 540 crores to Rs 810
crores. The post matric scholarship sees only a small increase from Rs 405 to
Rs 450 crore. Both schemes need much more resources, apart from funding to make
them known to small towns and village populations.
The Christian community is
the least benefited by the Multi Sectorial Development Programme in selected
minority Districts, a scheme that benefits only one minority group, the Muslims
who are euphemistically called a “vote bank”. And even here has been reduced
sharply from the Rs 1,077.60 crore in 2012 budget to Rs 887 crore in the
2013-2014 crores. This scheme will benefit the Christian community only when it
is sharply focused on the population figure for minorities at the block level.
As it stands now, this scheme once again basically benefits Muslims who are
concentrated in a 100 of the 600 districts in the country. If the focus shifts
to blocks Christians, including fishermen in coastal areas and marginalised
farmers, will benefit in states such as Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh,
Madhya Pradesh and Punjab, apart from areas in other States.
Possibly the only segment of
Mr. Chidambaram’s gender budget that can be welcomed wholeheartedly is the
funding of Rs. 97,134 crore for women and a child budget of Rs. 77,236. Women
belonging to most vulnerable groups, including single women and widows, will be
to some extent helped in living a life of self-esteem and dignity. It is good
that the ministry of women and child development had been asked to design
schemes to gender discrimination especially at the work place. Our own
experience which the situation of women and children in states such as Orissa
and Madhya Pradesh show the plight of women and children in all aspects of
life.
