Focus on social security

By Nantoo Banerjee

No prize for guessing a soft union budget for 2008-09. The forthcoming budget will invariably carry several populist pills for the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government to win the heart of the people as the country prepares to go for the Lok Sabha elections by March, 2009, or even earlier. In keeping with the past practices, it is expected to be a cheer-all budget, no matter what it may cost the economy in the final analysis.

The government is already cooing that the economic growth rate will slow down in the next fiscal. Conveniently, this is being blamed on the economic slow-down in the US. The fact is that the Indian economy is not strongly linked with the US economy in terms of foreign trade. Export constitutes a very small percentage of India's gross domestic product (GDP). Recession in the US and a weak dollar may weaken India's exports, but they should make the country's imports, at least from the US, a key trading partner, and other dollar denominated zones, cheaper. Also, they are unlikely to affect the inflow of foreign direct investment (FDI).

The 2008-09 budget provides the Congress-led UPA the best and the last opportunity to tell the country's 700 million voters that it understands their difficulties and cares for them. To prove the point, the government has to go for a soft budget, something to cheer about for all - farmers, industrial workers, the rural unemployed, white collar employees, the self-employed, the middle-class, the high income group, small and big businesses, the corporate sector, the religious minority groups and the underprivileged. However, if the past results of the so-called people friendly pre-poll budgets are examined, there is no guarantee that a soft budget for 2008-09 will be an election winner for the Congress and its allies. Yet, a hard budget is out of question. Such an act will certainly be an election loser.

Unlike in the US, which follows an open budget policy and encourages nation-wide public debate for months on key issues and provisions before finalising the federal budget, the Indian budget is a secret document until it is read out by the Union Finance Minister at a joint session of Parliament. The Indian budget is a give-and-take exercise always carrying some surprises in the areas of taxation - direct or indirect. The taxes and levies are of immediate concern to the people. The Finance Minister routinely invites the trade and industry to present their points of view on the issues concerning business and industrial growth. Such presentations are made in the form of memorandums, copies of which are normally released to the media by those organisations for public consumption. The industry representations routinely press for lower taxes, less government control and greater freedom of operation. The media also gives usolicited advice to the government through experts, economists, financial wizards, social scientists, etc. in its usual pre-budget run-up. However, the Finance Ministry relies more on the official feed-back from various government departments and try to accommodate their suggestions and recommendations, including those from the Planning Commission and the Ministry's own economists and bureaucrats.

In a pre-election year, the government departments, especially ministries such as food and agriculture, health, community services, rural welfare and development, which directly deal with the common man or the largest chunk of voters, have a big say in the making of the budget. Funds allocated to these welfare sectors are mostly in the form of subsidies and doles which have little positive impact on the country's gross domestic product (GDP) or economic growth. Distribution of these funds follows a complex pattern involving a number of agencies. The administrative cost is huge. The audit system is loose. Loopholes in the process are too many. There is also political interference at state level. For instance, in West Bengal, the funds for the centrally-aided rural job guarantee scheme are invariably underutilized in those panchayats and blocks which are controlled by parties other than CPI (M). The recent Forward Bloc protest at Dinhata in Coochbehar district of West Bengal, in which four people died in police firing, was mainly against a deliberate attempt by the district administration to block the distribution of funds under the job guarantee scheme in the area to teach the majority Forward Bloc supporters a hard lesson.

The job guarantee scheme is a good concept. But, it is not being implemented in the right spirit. In most cases, there is no proper job audit. The jobs benefit only a section of the rural unemployed and the administration. The allocated funds are distributed more like doles to the rural unemployed. Similarly, the loan write-off to help marginal farmers is more for the benefit of the concerned banks than farmers who are perpetually engaged in tilling uneconomic holdings. Cooperative farming may be a better solution, but no government has ever taken a firm stand on the issue for fear of a backlash from both the small and large holders. Take the fertiliser subsidy which is again a good concept and extremely important for ensuring the country's food security. In practice, the subsidy is seen more to benefit inefficient fertiliser companies than the weak and marginal farmers. Most farmers are not even aware that the government subsidies their fertiliser prices.

It is the vote bank and not what is good for the economy or the society in the long run that dictates government policies. However, the vote bank has always been somewhat illusive and also elusive to political parties despite the latter's indulgence over the years in caste and quota politics, opportunity cum job reservations, rural job guarantee schemes and farmer-specific reliefs such as fertilizer subsidy, power and water subsidies, minimum procurement prices and direct tax waivers. One reason could be that the so-called pro-poor programmes lack social and community visibility. The programme management is so poor and inefficient that the benefactors do not even know the sources of these programmes. Also, there is no effort to develop a sense of ownership among the beneficiaries of a programme. The grievance redressal system is totally ineffective.

Another reason is that despite these programmes economic and social disparities among the lower strata of the people have been growing, giving rise to political extremism and violent unrests in several parts of the country. The government programmes undermine the social security aspects. The poor, whose number has grown substantially despite a fall in their percentage terms as compared to the total population, are still miserably short of food, housing, drinking water, sanitation, education and healthcare. In general, the most socially unprotected and economically uncared for are the children and the old people, who comprise nearly 40 per cent of the country's population.

To ensure its vote bank, the Congress and its UPA allies must try to devise a way to protect the most unprotected through its forthcoming budget proposals, not by handing out charities and doles but by putting right institutions in place to ensure that such schemes benefit the society as much as the individuals and add to the or GDP. The 2008-9 budget should not only contain a strong social security programme but also be seen to be doing so. (IPA)

Gender budgeting

By Angela Gadroo

The process of gender budgeting eventually results in gender responsive budgets. The terms gender responsive budgets, gender sensitive budgets, gender budgets and women's budgets are however often used interchangeably. Gender budgeting refers to the process of conceiving , planning, approving, executing, monitoring, analyzing and auditing budgets in a gender sensitive way. It involves analysis of actual expenditure and revenue (usually of the Govt.) on women and girls as compared to on men and boys. It helps Governments to decide how policies need to be made, adjusted and re-prioritized. It is a tool for effective policy implementation where one can check if the allocations are in line with policy commitments and are having the desired impact.

Gender Budgeting is not an end in itself. It is a tool or means for achieving gender equality and women's empowerment. Gender Budgeting can be very effective in reducing gender discrimination and addressing socio-economic discrimination against women because most policy commitments can only be achieved if sufficient funds are allocated for their implementation. Women's and men's needs, concerns and priorities differ due to their different roles in society. The way a government raises and spends money can have a negative impact on women.

Gender budgeting helps in the following key functions which are generic and essential for any department to ensure efficiency, effectiveness, accountability gender equality and value for money.

* Monitoring of the achievement of policy goals - It provides a tool to monitor the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals/ a country's plan goals and other policy goals in a gender- aware manner.

* Achieving gender equity / equality- It requires equality of outcomes for women and men. This implies the recognition of different needs, preferences and interests, which affect the way women and men benefit from policies and budgetary allocations.

* Advancing the realization of women's rights- Gender budgeting attempts to measure the gaps between policy commitments in respect to human and women's rights instruments, the adequacy of resource allocations, and the outcomes of both.

* Alleviating poverty more effectively - It is widely acknowledged that social indicators for women are far worse than men belonging to the same social economic strata, that women and men experience poverty differently, and face different constraints to overcome poverty. Women are also more affected by time poverty than men. If women's needs are not taken into account, poverty reduction policies risk failures.

* Enhancing economic efficiency - Several studies have shown that there is a positive correlation between diminishing gender inequality and higher growth rates. Women's productivity increases disproportionately if their access to information, credit, extension services, inputs and markets is enhanced and their time burden is reduced through, for example, investment in labour-saving infrastructure.

* Achieving good governance- the process of improving the delivery of goods and services to women, men, girls and boys in a fair, just and responsible way has to be considered as an integral part of the definition of good governance. Good governance requires a participatory approach so that the different perspectives of different groups of citizens, including women, are represented.

* Enhancing accountability and transparence - Gender budgeting is a powerful tool for highlighting gaps between international commitments and the amount of public spending earmarked for the achievement of gender-specific benchmarks and targets. Gender budgeting necessitates the availability of sex- disaggregated and other gender- relevant data and accessibility of programmatic information. By tracking how allocated money is spent, Gender budgeting increases both accountability and transparency.

There are a number of different stakeholders who are involved in Gender Budgeting. They have different roles and carry out different activities. Some of them are the Ministry of Women and Child Development(nodel ministry at the central level, in India) , The Ministry of Finance (at the centre and in the state), The Planning Department of Planning Commission(at the centre and in the states), Sectoral ministries - each and every department / ministry can do gender budgeting, Researchers/ Economists, Civil society organizations especially women's groups, Parliamentarians, MLAs and representatives of the people at state / district and sub- district levels, Media, Statisticians and the women and men for whom the specific Policy, programme or budget is intended.

Thus all new programmes, projects and schemes must be passed through a gender lens. This will ensure that gender sensitivity and women's participation is built into new programmes and schemes from the start.

Endangered food security

By Satyendra Pratap Singh

The latest RBI report detailing the production of principal foodgrains all the way from 1950-51 till 2006-07 makes a distressing reading. Wheat production in the country has advanced from 6.46 million tonnes in 1950-51 to 74.89 million tonnes in 2006-07, that is, by more than eleven-and-a-half times. The corresponding rise in the output of rice is from 20.58 millions tonnes to 92.76 million, which works out to an order of increase slightly exceeding four-and-a-half times.

In the case of coarse grains like jowar, bajra and ragi, however, the increase in output is markedly less, from 15.38 million tonnes in 1950-51 to 34.25 million in 2006-2007; production has doubled, but hardly much more than that. Considerably worse is the state of things with regard to pulses. The production of pulses in the country was 8.41 million tonnes in 1950-51; in 2006-07, almost six decades later; it was 14.23 million tonnes, the rise in output being less than 60 per cent. In fact, the production of pulses was already 10.62 million tonnes in 1953-54. To suggest that, over the vast stretch of half a century, the national output of pulses has increased by barely 40 per cent would not therefore be at all unfair.

Seasoned politicians as well as civil servants constantly express their concern over the nation's food security, mentioning, inter alia, how this security has been ensured by thoughtful official measures such as the induction of path-breaking new farm technologies. Some economists are nonetheless convinced that, over the past half-century, per capita availability of foodgrains-an important index of food security-has declined; given the phenomenon of growing income inequalities, per capita grain availability for the country's poor has actually fallen far more sharply.

Other economists do contest this point of view, and the debate remains open-ended. Since the national population has increased roughly two-and-a-half times between the early Fifties and the first decade of the 21st century, per capita availability of wheat must have, on the face of it, gone up to an appreciable extent. Per capita availability with respect to rice too has risen, but moderately. The picture is altogether different for both coarse grains and pulses. Per capita availability of coarse grains is likely to have fallen by at least one-third during the epoch of economic planning. For pulses, the situation is staggeringly much more frightening. The country's population has increased by around 150 per cent during the period we have in mind; overall production of pulses has gone up, as noted above, by at most 40 per cent.

In the terminology of economics, pulses belong to the category of so-called Giffen goods, inferior commodities the demand for which drops with rising standard of living. Pulses are a minor constituent in the consumption basket of the affluent sections in society; the same is true for coarse grains like jowar and bajra. The relative sluggishness in their output leads to but one conclusion: inferior foodgrains such as pulses and coarse cereals do not come within the orbit of interest of national planners. The gross domestic product has maintained a rate of growth of 9 per cent or more per annum in recent years. In the circumstances, there is scarcely any need, so it seems is the view of officialdom, to strive to augment the production of inferior grains.

The GDP may increase at a breathtakingly exponential rate, but that has little impact on the state of poverty and destitution in the country. Roughly one-third of the nation continues to be horrendously poor even after six decades of independence and spiralling growth in GDP in recent years. The upper stratum-consisting of, say, one-fifth of the national population-are monopolizing the fruits of the GDP growth, the rest remain outside its pale.

New experiments with farm technology have from time to time bestirred the countryside. The focus of these experiments has been on effecting improvement in the productivity of rice, wheat and the general range of commercial crops, including export crops. Coarse grains and pulses do not make the agenda; none has the time to spare a thought particularly for pulses, despite this grain being a significant source of protein so essential for human existence.

It is a sorry, tragic, depressing story. The poor are a constant of the Indian reality; their proportion does not decline, nor their absolute number. For sheer survival, they need to have a minimum intake of protein. Milk, fish, meat, eggs, items rich in protein, have, of course, always has been beyond their means. They have, through the ages, fallen back on pulses for ensuring the ingress of a minimal quantity of proteins in their bodies. In the course of the past half a century, the rate of growth of pulse production, as already indicated, has been whimpering low. The shortage of supply has not only encroached on the per capita availability of this protein-rich grain, it has also led to a continuous increase in the price level of the grain. The poorer sections, lacking adequate purchasing power, have therefore been further shoved out of the market for pulses. The inevitable consequence is a declining intake of protein on their part.

The steady fall in per capita protein intake by the nation's poor is reflected in the finding of the Human Development Report periodically released by the United Nations. Gross domestic product growth fetishists scowl at the mention of this report; mere scowling however cannot unmake facts. The principal reason for the disappointing nutritional condition of the average Indian, highlighted in the report, is the declining availability of pulses for the country's poor, a fall uncompensated for by increased intake of protein from any other source. The authorities are obviously not worried: the HDR notwithstanding, there is every prospect of the GDP maintaining its high rate of growth; nobody can then stop India from emerging as one of the major countries in the world.

There is a grim sequel to the story of the continuously shrinking availability of pulses in the food intake of India's poverty-ridden millions. The poor may be poor; their bodies still have a hankering for protein. They are devoid of the means to buy protein-rich foods, and cannot even afford pulses; they therefore take as substitute a species of vetch, lathyrus sativus, widely known in the countryside as khesari, which provides them with some protein. Unfortunately, the consumption of this vetch over a period of time leads to a form of permanent paralysis described in the literature of biological sciences as latherysm. Its incidence is especially virulent, for understandable reason, among the destitute masses in central and eastern India, notably among the tribals. The word khesari is actually a corrupt version of the vetch's nomenclature in Sanskrit, khanjakari, meaning "what lames or deforms". INAV