#Budget2017: The Dalit-Adivasi-SC/ST Litmus Test

If 2015 was (in)famous for beef lynchings then 2016 will go down in history for Dalit atrocities and Dalit resistance, not to forget the Adivasi resistance. From Rohith Vemula’s suicide, Una atrocities, Hazaribagh killings to state excesses in Bastar and the consequent Dalit and Adivasi resistance brought the state’s treatment of the marginalised in sharp focus. And the inspiring, intrepid uprisings by the marginalised communities built new narratives of hope and struggles.

One would expect the 2016-17 Economic Survey, which is one of the longest and got hagiographic coverage from big media, would have taken note of the Dalit and Adivasi agenda. Yet a word search of Economic Survey throws up no mentions of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe, as was noted in his analysis by Umesh Babu of Delhi Solidarity Forum, a civil society coalition focused on rights and development. Not surprising, considering it doesn’t put out any exact number on the black money returned to the system due to demonetisation either.

The union budget that followed a day later (historic and disruptive in many ways, on the back of demonetisation; brought forward by a month; merging with the Railways’ Budget) should have at least addressed the state injustices with budgetary allocations, care and caution for its weakest, especially since two poll-bound states have considerable Dalit, Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe and Adivasi populations. These communities make up 22 percent and 32 percent respectively of Uttar Pradesh and Punjab’s population. But the budget analyses by the Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA) and National Campaign for Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR), suggest quite to the contrary.

Another disruption in the 2017-18 budget is the merger of plan and non-plan allocations in the Union Budget. With the government moving away from the system of five-year plans, the distinction between Plan and Non-Plan is going to be a thing of the past once the new Budget comes into effect. Plan expenditure was spending incurred on programmes and schemes of the government detailed under the prevailing Five Year Plan, including all kinds of expenditure on schemes, whether on Recurring, or Revenue or Capital heads. Taking Sarva Siksha Abhiyan as an example – expenditure on teachers’ salary constituted Plan Revenue Expenditure as did construction of school buildings.

Non-Plan expenditure included interest payments, subsidies, salary and pension payments (for regular cadre staff across sectors), police, defence, expenditure on maintenance of assets or infrastructure across sectors constituted Non-Plan expenditure. In important development sectors, more than two-third of total public spending has come from Non-Plan expenditure. For example, the government made allocations to the Rural Development Ministry for building roads under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana as Plan Expenditure, but their maintenance belonged to Non-Plan budget. Under this year’s budget, all these expenditures will be reported together.

Happy Pant of CBGA explained the pros and cons of removing the distinction between Plan and Non-Plan expenditures. “Non-plan expenditures suffered from bias since only planned expenditures were considered developmental,” said Pant. “But with increasing casualisation/contractualisation of human resources, doctors’, teachers’ salaries were all being counted as non-developmental in the accounting books. So this merger does away with that bias. But it also makes tracking allocation and expenditure to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes under the constitutionally mandated Scheduled Caste Sub Plan (SCSP) and Tribal Sub Plan (TSP) so much more difficult.”

These are top-up allocations to be made pro rata by Central and State Governments as per the SC, ST population in each state and Union Territory. For example, if Odisha has eight percent tribal population and 16 percent scheduled caste population, then 24 per cent of its budget should be earmarked for these communities and the central allocation for the state of Odisha should also earmark similar proportion for these communities.

Since delivering development to the most marginalised communities in far-off areas is more expensive, SCSP, TSP provisions were made to reach the Dalits and Adivasis with programmes for them, responding to their needs. This is financial affirmative action mandated in the constitution.

The allocations in 2017-18 budget stand at Rs 52,393 crore for the SCs in comparison to Rs 38,833 crore in 2016-17; and Rs 31,920 crores for the STs (in 2017-18) compared to Rs 24,005 crore allocated last year. In absolute terms this looks like a step up, but it is not. In the merged scenario of plan and non-plan estimates following the Narendra Jadhav guidelines (formulated under the leadership of Narendra Jadhav, the Rajya Sabha MP for better allocation and implementation of SCSP and TSP for inclusive growth), a minimum of 4.63 percent of the Union Budget needs to be allocated under the Scheduled Castes Sub Plan and Tribal Sub Plan, the NCDHR pointed out. In which case, the denied amount is Rs 71,139 crore for SCs and Rs 34,349 crore for STs. Paul Divakar, noted Dalit and Adivasi champion, said “Earlier, monitoring expenditure of the SCSP and TSP funds at state level was focus of the rights groups and budget analysts, now tracking that money from the union budget to states will be an added challenge.”

Additionally, there is a substantial decrease in the budget of Department of Social Justice and Empowerment (nodal department for Scheduled Caste programmes), especially for school education. The budget for ‘Pre Matric Scholarship for SC’ has been drastically reduced from Rs. 550 crore in 2016-17 to Rs. 50 crore in 2017-18. This has been explained because of low demands from the states. Though, the gross under-spending in the scholarship points to absorption incapacity amongst nodal departments and states where students need this scholarship most.

Rehabilitation of manual scavengers has been another major issue. Allocations for Self-Employment Scheme for Rehabilitation of Manual Scavengers remain low at less than Rs 10 crore in 2017-18, which is a concern given the importance of this scheme in view of the enactment of the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013. In this context, the standing committee report also observes that while Census 2011 reports 26 lakh sanitary latrines in the country, with 7.94 lakh being serviced by humans, it is surprising that there has not been any increase noted in the number of manual scavengers in last one year. Thus, identification of manual scavengers needs to be made priority, along with their rehabilitation in dignified alternate professions. This has been a long-standing campaign of Safai Karamchaari Andolan and Bezwada Wilson, their founder and Magsaysay awardee has explained this challenge and willful denial in this inspiring interview.

There is lack of clarity regarding earmarking funds for TSP as well. While absolute budgets have increased, this is not indicative of any significant changes in the approach towards TSP by various ministries. The allocations for Ministry of Tribal Affairs have remained almost stagnant, with only marginal increases over the years.

Not only are allocations decreasing, the sectors that matters to Dalits and Adivasis (and every poor and not-so-poor Indian) most – health and education – allocations are also frozen at sea-bed levels (at 1.2 percent for health and 3.7 percent for education).

Wilson reminds us that a progressive society needs to be measured by how it takes care of its weakest, a pro-poor budget also needs to be measured by its allocation to the most marginalised in the state. He said, “Allocation to Dalits and Adivasis, who constitute 24 percent of India, is just indicative of the state’s thinking for its most marginalised. And if 2017-18 budget is any indicator, it leaves a lot to be desired.”

 The author can be reached at biraj_swain@hotmail.com