[At an event organised by The Economic Times the Indian "Prime Minister Narendra Modi said [last] Friday [that] he would not cut subsidies [for poor]", emphatically asserted: "I believe that subsidies are needed for them (poor). What we need is a well-targeted system of subsidy delivery. We need to cut subsidy leakages." (See: <http://www.nmtv.tv/news/pm-narendra-modi-advocates-the-need-subsidy-for-poor>.) And just a small representative sample of what is actually happening is provided below (sl. no. I - III) - the coverages of the of MNREGA and FSA, two major social security measures to serve the poor, are drastically pruned and so is the allocation for public health services.]
I/IV. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/Centre-halves-fund-for-job-guarantee-scheme/articleshow/45926409.cms Centre halves fund for job-guarantee scheme TNN | Jan 18, 2015, 12.18AM IST MUMBAI: The Modi government's squeeze on the UPA's flagship MNREGA scheme is translating into dramatic fund cuts for Maharashtra, which has a BJP government. ****** [emphasis added]Compared to the last financial year till December, central funds to the rural job scheme have almost halved, data with the state government reveals. The MNREGA--among the largest job-creation programmes in the world--provides a social safety net for the rural poor. Under the scheme, the Centre funds 100 days of work at the minimum wage for rural job-seekers [one per family]. States pitch in to finance the rest. The picture in Maharashtra shows how swiftly federal funding has fallen over the last year. ***In the nine-month period between April and December 2014, Maharashtra received Rs 593 crore from the Centre. Compare this with the same period in 2013 when it had received Rs 1,152 crore. A staggering 48.5% fund cut.*** [Emphasis added.] The picture is not much better when you compare the entire year. In the 2013-14 financial year, Maharashtra received central funds amounting to Rs 1,277 crore for the scheme. But based on the money received so far, the state government officials estimate it will receive just about Rs 800 crore for the 2014-15 financial year (a dip of 37%). Interestingly, after the generous funding it had received during the UPA regime, the state had asked for a larger chunk of central funding for the programme this year. Officials say the cuts have not affected the working of the scheme so far. "We have not reduced the number of people employed. The demands we made from the Centre have been met," said state employment guarantee scheme secretary Prabhakar Deshmukh. However, sources say the scheme has not been hit so far because officials are relying on finance that remained unused from the previous year The state's experience matches the larger national trend, ***with the NDA seeking to restrict the scheme. In October 2014, 28 leading economists had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging him not to "dilute" the programme. "We are already witnessing enormous spending cuts by the Centre, which wants to drastically control the fiscal deficit. The soft target for such cuts is always the social sector," says economist R Ramakumar from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences.*** [Emphasis added.] He points out that Maharashtra has among the worst records in the country for providing employment under MNREGA and restricting funds could make matters much worse. "Only 13% households in Maharashtra have a job card under the scheme compared to the all-India average of 35%," he points out. II/IV. http://www.asianage.com/mumbai/congress-and-ncp-condemn-cut-food-security-scheme-723 Congress and NCP condemn cut in food security scheme Jan 19, 2015 | Age Correspondent | Mumbai The Opposition Congress and NCP are agitated over the dropping of 1.77 crore beneficiaries from the Above Poverty Level (APL) category of food security scheme across the state. The minister for food and civil supply confirmed that Centre had to stop allocating foodgrains to these APL beneficiaries since Oct. 2014. According to an official from the Maharashtra's food and security ministry, the Narendra Modi led-Union government has decided to modify the UPA's food security scheme by minimising the number of beneficiaries and the subsidies provided to implement the scheme. Vidya Thakur, Maharashtra's minister of state for food and civil supply, has confirmed that Centre has drastically reduced the number of beneficiaries for the food security mission since last October. "The Centre has said that they can afford only seven crore beneficiaries who are below poverty line (BPL). Hence, since last October, the state government did not receive the subsidised foodgrain for remaining 1.77 crore APL beneficiaries," said Ms Thakur. Displeased with the decision, Congress and NCP attacked the Union government. "Food security scheme was UPA's dream project that has provided foodgrains at a cheaper rate to the poorest people of the country," said Manikrao Thakre, MPCC president. Mr Thakre said that Congress would protest against the issue on a statewide platform and expose the anti-poor policy of BJP. Nawab Malik of NCP said that then agriculture minister and NCP chief Sharad Pawar had presented the scheme to ensure that the poor people would not remain hungry and the foodgrains are not wasted in godowns. "NCP will protest against the state government if the chief minister allows over a crore beneficiaries to be dropped from the scheme," he said. Meanwhile, Ms Thakur also said that a number of bogus or fake ration cards were being used to take undue advantage of the scheme. To cut down on the misuse the number of beneficiaries for the food security scheme was trimmed. Talking about other reasons that may have prompted the government to make the move, Ms Thakur said, "Although Centre allocates funds for the BPL schemes, the state has to make provision of Rs 1,100 crores for APL categories. As the financial situation of Maharashtra is not good, it may be another reason for this move." III/IV. http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/12/23/india-health-budget-idINKBN0K10Y020141223 India slashes health budget, already one of the world's lowest BY ADITYA KALRA NEW DELHI Tue Dec 23, 2014 6:20pm IST A paramedic distributes free medicine provided by the government to patients inside a ward at Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital (RGGGH) in Chennai July 12, 2012. CREDIT: REUTERS/BABU/FILES (Reuters) - The government has ordered a cut of nearly 20 percent in its 2014/15 healthcare budget due to fiscal strains, putting at risk key disease control initiatives in a country whose public spending on health is already among the lowest in the world. Two health ministry officials told Reuters on Tuesday that more than 60 billion rupees, or $948 million, has been slashed from their budget allocation of around $5 billion for the financial year ending on March 31. Despite rapid economic growth over the past two decades, successive governments have kept a tight rein on healthcare expenditure. India spends about 1 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on public health, compared to 3 percent in China and 8.3 percent in the United States. But hopes were high that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was elected in May, would upgrade basic health infrastructure and make medical services more affordable for the poor. The United Nations estimates about one third of the world's 1.2 billion poorest people live in India. "We were not expecting (budget cuts) this time because of the commitments they made in the manifesto," one of the health ministry officials said, referring to Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). "No reason was given ... but there is shortage of funds. It is not rocket science." The officials requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. The finance ministry, which ordered the spending reduction and overruled objections from the health ministry at a recent meeting, did not respond immediately to requests for comment. The move reflects the government's struggle to achieve its 2014/15 fiscal deficit target of 4.1 percent of GDP. Dominated by private players, India's healthcare industry is growing at an annual clip of around 15 percent, but public spending has remained low and resulted in a dilapidated network of government hospitals and clinics, especially in rural areas. One of the health ministry officials said the cut could crimp efforts to control the spread of diseases. More newborns die in India than in poorer neighbours such as Bangladesh, and preventable illnesses such as diarrhoea kill more than a million children every year. The retrenchment could also derail an ambitious universal healthcare programme that Modi wants to launch in April. The plan aims to provide all citizens with free drugs and diagnostic treatments, as well as insurance benefits. The cost of that programme over the next four years had been estimated at 1.6 trillion rupees ($25 billion). The health ministry officials had been expecting a jump in their budget for the coming year, in part to pay for this extra cost. "Even next year we don't think we'll get a huge amount of money," said one official, adding that it was now unclear how the new programme would be funded. HIV/AIDS FUNDS SLASHED In addition to the healthcare budget, the finance ministry has also ordered a spending cut for India's HIV/AIDS programme by about 30 percent to 13 billion rupees ($205.4 million). India had the third-largest number of people living with HIV in the world at the end of 2013, according to the U.N. AIDS programme, and it accounts for more than half of all AIDS-related deaths in the Asia-Pacific. In October, India was on the brink of running out of a critical medicine in its free HIV/AIDS drugs programme due to bureaucratic delays. A crisis was averted with the assistance of pharmaceutical companies and global health organisations. Still, health activists complain about dire shortages of several HIV/AIDS diagnostic kits. "We are all in shock. That shows the kind of importance the government attaches to public health," said Leena Menghaney, a New Delhi-based public health activist. "This will undermine the HIV programme in the long run." (Additional reporting by Rajesh Kumar Singh; Editing by John Chalmers and Jeremy Laurence) [Despite some heated controversy as regards the veracity of the report, there appears to be no official contradiction.] IV. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Feku-selfie-make-it-to-Gujarati-lexicon/articleshow/45934841.cms AHMEDABAD: Congress's attempt to halt Narendra Modi's march to the PMO by naming him 'Feku'--for hyping his model of development in Gujarat--made the term go viral and has ensured its entry into the Gujarati lexicon. Interestingly, 'feku', which is colloquial Gujarati for a person who bluffs unabashedly, has only recently been included in the e-dictionary maintained as 'Lok Kosh' (people's dictionary) by Gujaratilexicon.com -- an initiative to promote Gujarati. Along with 'feku', popular Gujarati words such as 'dhuppal' (bluff), 'tapori' (scoundrel), 'bakudi' (term of endearment for a girl), 'dorde-vaatu' (telephone) and English words 'selfie', 'tweet', 'profile' and 'kacker' that took the social media by storm are new entries. Snipped -- Peace Is Doable -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
