Budget 2019: Govt cuts expenditure on key social schemes, farm sector gets major boost

Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM), another core scheme, at Rs12,644 crore allocation, saw a 25 percent reduction as compared to the revised estimated Rs 16,978 crore. Finance Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg clarified that the bulk of work under SBM was completed and hence the capital requirement and budgetary allocation has been trimmed.

Budgetary allocation for healthcare in FY20 rose 2 percent vs the interim budget and is now up 15.4 percent year-on-year.

For the National Health Mission, there is a 7.8 percent increase in allocation. The allocation for the ambitious health insurance scheme for the poor, Ayushman Bharat, was in line with the interim budget at Rs 6,556 crore.

It was interesting that the Finance Minister completely skipped talking about healthcare in her budget speech, except two references – one on Swachh Bharat Mission and the other listing Ayushman Bharat as part of govt’s vision of India.

National Education Mission allocation was increased by nearly 20 percent to Rs 38,547 crore. The Finance Minister spoke about bringing a New Education Policy and proposed changes in schools and higher education. Setting up Higher Education Commission with a focus on greater autonomy and a program namely 'Study In India' to attract foreign students for higher education was also announced.

With the new Jal Sakhti Abhiyan and a focus on providing ‘Har Ghar Jal’, the allocation for National Rural Drinking Water Mission has seen a near 80 percent increase to Rs 10,000 crore.

If there has been one big push in terms of budget allocation, it has clearly been for the farm sector with the aggregate budgeted spend almost doubling over the previous year. Another important area, which the government also acknowledged requires attention with respect to modernization, is the defence sector. The allocation for the sector hasn’t grown significantly at 6.2 percent, but at least within this, the capital expenditure is up almost 10 percent. Healthcare and education have seen growth in allocations of 14 percent and 12 percent, which are healthy but perhaps still inadequate to address the scale of issues. But then, in these sectors, the bigger challenge is execution, not so much the money.

In a nutshell, while the overall expenditure of the government is seen growing at about 20 percent in FY20, some of the key social sectors haven’t seen much higher allocation. The farm sector though has got its due.