People's Democracy

Promises To Keep: SFI

THE budget presented by the finance minister for 2005-06 is a welcome shift towards an emphasis for the social sectors in general and education in particular.  It is important, however, to note here that the tax revenue estimate of the budget appears to be gross over estimates, especially when we see it in the light of the previous year where we find a shortfall of Rs 11,000 crore (gross tax revenue was Rs 3,06,021 crore instead of the estimated amount of Rs 3,17,733 crore). The proposed increase in education from Rs 13,228.73 crore to Rs 18,337.03 crore in 2005-06 (an increase from 2.61 per cent to 3.56 per cent of total budget expenditure) might not materialise if such huge shortfalls occur on the revenue side especially when the finance minister is so keen on achieving the FRBM goals, which we think should definitely not be a constraint for expenditure on social sectors.

Even though there has been an increased allocation on the whole, the expenditure on higher education has been increased by only Rs 576.35 crore as against an increase of Rs 4531.95 crore for elementary education and literacy. Though this increase in primary education is absolutely necessary, higher education is no less important. The stress on higher education is missing where the percentage allocations on higher education saw a mere increase of 0.09 per cent i.e., from 1.03 per cent to only 1.12 per cent. This lack of importance to higher education will essentially lead to further commercialisation of education.

The introduction of Rajiv Gandhi National Fellowship for SC/ST students pursuing higher studies and full fee waiver for such students in institutes of excellence is welcome. But the allocations under this head under the ministry of social justice have increased only marginally from Rs 1557.07 crore (2004-05) to Rs 1599.70 crore (2005-06). So the real implementation of such a scheme remains to be seen. There is a need to bring girl strudents and students from religious minorities under this net of socially deprived sections so that the students belonging to these sections are encouraged to pursue higher education.

The proposal of creating institutions of excellence lacks seriousness since it only emphasises on a single institute. An additional sum of Rs 100 crore, out of a total increase of 576.35 crores on higher education (one-fifth of the entire increase), has been proposed for this one institute. The need of the hour however is to allocate more funds for thousands of government run institutes that are starving due to a dearth of resources. The government should identify more such universities and institutes rather than restricting it to only one. Such lack of seriousness is quite evident from the government’s attitude towards the ITIs. Despite making a promise last year that 100 ITIs would be upgraded every year, no concrete steps have been taken to keep that promise. What we find instead is just a repetition of the same promise. Furthermore, some stray remarks have also been made about Skills Development Initiative without any concrete proposal backing it.

Despite protests by different sections of the society against the Patents Ordinance 2004, the finance minister has mischievously declared the government’s consent for the proposal. All the like-minded people will fight this new patent regime, which undermines the self-reliance of our country.

We, however, welcome the shift in the budget towards fulfilling certain promises made by the UPA in the Common Minimum Programme, specially vis-à-vis the employment generation scheme, development of infrastructure in agriculture, which is in tune with the demands raised by the Left. However, much remains to be done, specially keeping the promise of spending 6 per cent of the GDP on education. This cannot be achieved unless the union government allocates 10 per cent of its budget for education.