Budget conundrums

FM will present the first budget in a few days after usual consultations with the stake holders

This is the 11th budget of the Modi Regime 3.0 and in the past ten years many path breaking initiatives have been done and as in any Govt, criticisms is there about its implementation and impact which should have been there

The only difference this time is BJP is dependent on TDP and JD U in a big way and both are demanding allies and they will not leave without their pound of flesh which should be evident when the budget proposals are laid in parliament

Adding to this is the Resurgence of a Billigerant Opposition led by INC and Rahul Gandhi in his New Avatar as LOP and the First session of the parliament gives a curtain raiser for the rest of the term of this parliament and the BJP reduced to minority in the Rajya Sabha which will give the opposition a great advantage where its nod is needed

NDA, despite reduced seats and discontent from the electorate in big states like UP, Maharashtra , has raised the alarm bells for the BJP and its mother outfit RSS but in the formation of the Cabinet he has by and large retained the ministers and the portfolio in key ministries and accomodated the allies

But the negativity which is there in the country is increasing each passing day

First , In a country where more than 80 crores live on Govt dole, it was a sorry spectacle to see the Ambani Shaadi in full display across news media and news papers the ugly display of wealth

Inequality: The choreographed spectacle of opulence and lavish display of wealth at Anant Ambani’s wedding was broadcast across India by fawning television channels and social media influencers. But the videos of the extravagant wedding invitations, 250-item menus when juxtaposed with chilling reports of poor children, in other parts of India, being served rice with turmeric and salt as midday meal for a whole month made for a sorry picture.

The Ambani family indeed has every right to spend its stupendous personal wealth as it pleases. Moreover, the Ambanis also made charitable gestures like funding a mass wedding of 50 poor couples and hosting a 40-day free public feast (bhandara) for the hoi polloi at their home in Mumbai. It has also been argued that the world loves pomp and pageantry, but that is usually when it is associated with national pride or royalty; it is not equally true of over-the-top display of riches by business oligarchs. In fact, the never-ending festivities, although closely followed by people, have only drawn attention to the vast income disparity in India.

The top 1% of people, comprising India’s super-rich, hold 53% of the nation’s wealth. The bottom 50% owns a miserable 4.1%, and over 810 mn (million) people survive on 5kg (kilogrammes) of free grain distributed by the government. This, in contrast to the lavish wedding, created bad optics primarily for the government in power.

For a majority of Indians, the depressing reality of their daily lives drowns out macro data thrown at them such as India ranking 5th in the world in terms of gross domestic product (GDP) and aspiring to be a US $5trn (trillion) economy growing at 7.2%. International media reports about the big-fat Ambani wedding also make it a point to mention how India ranks very low in world equality rankings. A UNDP report of 2023 says, a third of all poor people in the world live in South Asia (389mn), of which a significant number is in India.

Infrastructure: A recurring image of the past five years is that of PM Modi inaugurating mega infrastructure projects such as roads, tunnels, airports, bridges and railway stations; or flagging off a series high-end trains. Beautiful videos of these grand projects were widely circulated on social media as signs of unprecedented infrastructure development. Many Indians voted for the NDA on the expectation that we were on the fast-track to being a developed nation, thereby generating employment opportunities and lifting people out of poverty.

It needed just a few weeks of monsoon fury to expose serious flaws in design, planning, structural engineering, supervision and monumental corruption in many show-piece infrastructure projects. The magnificent, 22km Atal-Setu bridge developed cracks on its approach road; the grand Mumbai coastal road sprang leaks its tunnel; the 701 km Samruddhi Mahamarg connecting Mumbai and Nagpur developed cracks as did highways at Nasik and Manali. Even infrastructure that has stood the test of time hasn’t escaped. The Mumbai-Pune Expressway, a landmark project of 25 years was water-logged in parts for the first time, due to badly planned expansion work. The Mumbai-Goa highway remains an embarrassment after 10 years of patchy work.

Newly constructed modern airports (Bengaluru, Goa) had leaky roofs. Canopies outside the airport collapsed at Delhi and Jabalpur, while a series of train accidents occurred; leaky rakes and faulty air-conditioning took the sheen off the Vande Bharat trains. The astonishing collapse of 13 bridges in Bihar in less than a month has evoked little political outrage or action. This is not a comprehensive list and does not include the cost and time overruns in major infrastructure projects listed by Debashis Basu in his column this week. Hasn’t the image of rapid progress and development been washed away?

Corruption: A government that came to power promising to eliminate corruption and provide efficient administration using technology to deliver results now faces widespread distrust. Rampant corruption and delays in implementation has undermined faith in government institutions and processes. Shoddy work and illegal clearances have endangered lives without the protection of adequate safety nets. Politicisation of government services and ignoring judicial processes (using bulldozers as a tool for punishment and land acquisition) is being normalised in many states. The Maharashtra government’s response to a horrific road accident in Pune, which triggered enormous public outrage was to demolish illegal construction by bars visited by the underage driver and a hotel owned his father! Such unconnected and illegal actions further erode confidence in police and judicial systems.

Education: Scandals over paper-leaks and job-fixing at centralised examinations for medicine, engineering and public services have demoralised our youth, already struggling with rising education costs and high unemployment rates. Scandalous details about IAS probationer Puja Khedkar that are spilling out over the past two weeks have exposed how easy it is for powerful people to manipulate even the prestigious Union public service commission (UPSC) admission process. She is alleged to have falsified her name, age, income, caste and disability certificates in order to game the system, thereby depriving more deserving candidates.

Corrupting the process gave Ms Khedkar admission to medical college, a job in the revenue service and later to the Indian Administrative Services (IAS). Such impunity is only possible when the entire system is corrupt and complicit about creating and accepting fake documents. It calls into question the identity verification processes such as Aadhaar, which claims to ensure unique identification. Meanwhile, mindless know-your-customer (KYC) processes and Aadhaar have become a tool to deprive people of access to their own money, or their entitlement to direct benefit transfers (DBT) from the government.

Taxation: Middle-class Indians are increasingly frustrated at high taxation amidst rising costs of food, fuel, education, healthcare, tolls, cess and goods and services tax (GST) levies. Recent data shows that gross personal income-tax collection, at Rs3.61 lakh crore in the April-June quarter, has outstripped gross corporate tax collection of Rs2.65 lakh crore.

Research findings show that the bottom 50% of people account for 64% of the total GST payments have gone viral on social media. The government remained oblivious to public anger at paying 18% GST on utilities such as telecom, electricity, healthcare and packaged parathas (not rotis), while gold and diamonds have a low 3% GST.

GST collection rose steadily since its launch in July 2017, but the monthly data will no longer be published. Opinions are mixed about whether this is due to public outrage over high GST or because the growth in collection has slowed down in the past few months, reflecting an economic sluggishness. Neither reason paints a positive picture.

Optics are crucial to politics, especially in a democracy. The presence of political leaders across the spectrum at the extravagant Ambani wedding sent the message that the political class is completely aligned with the oligarchs – whether it is Ambani, Adani, Mallya, Agarwal or Jindal—and will work for their mutual benefit. Ordinary people will be left to deal with the corrupt and creaking system with no social safety net even for diligent taxpayers!

Social media has amplified these bad optics, but the results are seen only at election time. What the union budget does will provide yet another signal, whose results may reflect in the coming set of state elections.