People's Democracy

Disinvesting in

Tribal Development

Archana Prasad

THE budget for 2012-2013 and its inadequate allocations for tribal development shows that the UPA-II government is not interested in meeting its constitutional obligations towards the tribal people. Ever since the Fifth Five Year Plan, the central government has had an additional obligation to provide special assistance for tribal development under the Tribal Sub Plan (TSP). Prior to 2010, every ministry of the central government was supposed to allocate funds for the TSP in proportion to the tribal population in the country. However, in 2010 a task force was set up in the Planning Commission to review the working of TSP and the Special Component Plan (SCP) for scheduled castes. In the light of the recommendations of this task force, the operational directions issued at the time of the formulation of the budget of 2011-12 showed that the orientation of this assistance had changed significantly from an area-based to a beneficiary-oriented approach. This shift in orientation reflects the structural changes that are being induced within the tribal societies in a neo-liberal era. These changes are characterised by large scale dispossession and the plunder of the natural and economic wealth that is now being appropriated by corporate houses. This has been done through the relaxation of environmental regulations and the active assistance of the government. A total of 1,82,389 hectares of forest land has been diverted to big projects between January 2008 and August 2011. Further, the withdrawal of the State from its own obligations in the social sector has resulted in increasing rates of hunger, malnutrition and migration to urban areas especially in the context of the continuing agrarian distress. Any changes in funding patterns and the special assistance under the TSP should be seen in this context.

GUIDELINES

AND OBLIGATIONS

In accordance with constitutional obligations, the total allocations under the TSP should equal to the proportion of the schedule tribe population within the country i.e., about 8.5 per cent.  In the 2012-13 budget proposals, Rs 21,710.11 crore has been allocated for tribal specific schemes under the TSP. The finance minister sees this allocation as an increase of 17.6 per cent from the estimates of 2011-12 (Rs 18,486.23 crore). However, his statement is misleading because the percentage of TSP allocation to the total plan budget has actually declined marginally from 4.3 per cent in 2011-12 to a projected 4.1 per cent in 2012-13. This shows that even the limited commitment of the UPA-II government towards tribal welfare is waning and that it does not intend to fulfil its constitutional obligations.

The key to the steadily decreasing proportion of funds for tribal welfare lies in the operational guidelines of 2011 which divided the ministries into four categories.  Category I consisted of ministries that were not required to allocate any funds for tribal specific schemes under the TSP. This meant that all ministries were not required to allocate at least some funds for tribal welfare. But the commitments under these official guidelines have not been fulfilled. In the 2012-13 proposals, about 32 of the 68 ministries and departments allocated funds under the TSP as compared to 28 ministries and departments in 2011-12. Thus about half of the departments remain outside the scope of the TSP, which itself violates the spirit of the constitutional obligations.

The second category or Category II ministries had to make minimum allocation towards the TSP, i.e. allocations less than 7.5 per cent of their total budget to tribal welfare. In 2011-12, 13 ministries were identified in this category with only one department (department of information technology) having the obligation to invest more than 5 per cent in tribal welfare. Many crucial ministries allocate less than 4 per cent of their resources to the TSP. These are ministries and departments like food and public distribution, road transport and highways etc that provide basic amenities to the tribal areas. In the present budget a total of 0.08 per cent of the total allocations for department of food and distribution and 1.9 per cent of the total allocation of road transport and highway ministry have been demarcated for tribal welfare. The only allocation made under the road transport and highways is for districts affected by ‘leftwing extremism’ and not for the improvement of fair weather and other roads linking remote villages to main habitations under schemes like Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana. Given the lack of public funds for such infrastructural facilities, it is obvious that the corporate players will enter into the fray through PPP models.

The third category or Category III departments and ministries are those which are to allocate 7.5 to 8.2 per cent of their funds to the TSP. Thirteen identified ministries include labour and employment, women and child development, agriculture and cooperative, panchayati raj, health and family welfare and others. It is important to note that such ministries are important, both for employment generation as well as for providing social services such as mid day meals and health services that are especially important for areas where hunger, malnutrition and unemployment persists. The role of these ministries is also crucial in providing support towards livelihood and other opportunities. Therefore, it is surprising that some ministries like agriculture, panchayati raj and labour have not been provided with a mandate to allocate more funds especially in the wake of the severe agrarian crisis and the non-implementation of PESA. Clearly, the government is looking towards private players to provide impetus to employment and is not interested in activating local self governments in these regions.

Finally, the fourth category or Category IV ministries and departments have to allocate more than 8.2 per cent of their budget towards the TSP. There are five departments and ministries which allocate funds under this category. As expected the ministry of tribal affairs provides 100 per cent of its funds for tribal welfare, but it is significant that none of the other four ministries/departments (i.e. rural development, school and literacy, and drinking water) are meant to provide even 20 per cent of their funds for the TSP. This shows that after 2011, the TSP has been designed to ensure that the flow of public funds is limited and that spaces are opened up for private players. This strategy falls in line with the way in which policies are being changed in all sectors to aid the corporate penetration taking place in mineral rich tribal areas.

ANALYSING BUDGETARY

ALLOCATIONS

Given the above framework, it is not surprising that the recent budget is just one more step in the direction of the withdrawal of the State from its responsibility towards the tribal people. This is evident from the pattern of funding given below:

The allocations made above show that more than two-thirds of the funds for the TSP are to come from only five ministries. Of these, the major portion of the funds come from the tribal affairs ministry whose total allocation of Rs 4090 crore form only 0.7 per cent of the entire budget. The composition of the Category IV  budget proposals (i.e., allocations of more than 8.2 per cent) are also revealing:

The table above shows that the Department of Rural Development has been most lacking in its commitment to make its constitutionally obligated allocations. Further, it is important to note that no funds have been allocated under the TSP in the MNREGA. The allocations under the Swarna Jayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana have also only gone up by Rs 112 crore to Rs 723.74 crore, which will only take care of the inflationary prices. This trend of miniscule allocations in an important sector shows that the government is not serious about tackling the livelihood insecurity prevailing in the tribal areas. Increasing trends of rural-urban migration also reveal the distress of the tribal economies under economic reforms.

Perhaps the most revealing is the trend in social sector allocations as revealed by an analysis of some Category III budget proposals (i.e., allocations of 7.5 to 8.2 per cent) as shown in the table below:

This table is instructive because it shows that a significant amount of decline has taken place in the percentages of allocations to the TSP in many employment and social security related schemes and ministries. This seems to be the real reason for the disinvestment in tribal development.

Thus we see that the restructuring of the TSP has been done to enable the drying up of public funds for tribal development. Therefore, the fight for more public investment in the TSP can only be fought meaningfully if the restructuring of the TSP is demystified. In order to do this, demands must be made to ensure that there is no categorisation of ministries and all ministries are directed to allocate at least 8.5 percent of their budget towards the TSP. Only this will ensure that the government meets its constitutional obligation towards the tribal people.