8 schemes, 10 years, poor show: A ‘bahikhata’ of the big budget headlines

From schemes focussed on women empowerment to increased water availability, each year, the corporate media churns out many big headlines from the union finance minister’s budget speech. But few manage to focus on how previous budget announcements have fared.

In this report, Newslaundry looked at eight different announcements, spanning sectors such as farming, maritime technology and women empowerment, to see how they had acquired priority in budget speeches but had a dismal performance on ground.

There was either a changed goalpost, or insufficient spending, or a missed deadline. 

This, despite the Narendra Modi government’s claim of how governance can receive a boost through a “double engine sarkaar”.

PM-KUSUM: All talk and no walk

In her budget speech on February 1, 2020, union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman had twice mentioned the PM KUSUM scheme – launched in 2019 with an aim to ensure energy security for farmers and to be implemented by the ministry of new and renewable energy. 

“Our government is committed to the goal of doubling farmers’ incomes by 2022. We have provided energy sovereignty through KUSUM and input sovereignty through Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana…In the budget speech of July 2019, I had stated that ‘annadata’ can be ‘urjadata’ too. The PM-KUSUM scheme removed farmers’ dependence on diesel and kerosene and linked pump sets to solar energy. Now, I propose to expand the scheme to provide 20 lakh farmers for setting up stand-alone solar pumps. Further we shall also help another 15 lakh farmers solarise their grid-connected pump sets,” the minister had said about the scheme which was supposed to be overseen by the new and renewable energy ministry.

The scheme, with a total of Rs 34,422 crore announced in central support in 2019 until 2022, aimed to add 30,800 MW of solar capacity by 2022. It had three components: component A with 10,000 MW from small solar power plants, component B with 20 lakh standalone solar agriculture pumps, and component C solarising 15 lakh grid-connected agriculture pumps.

But the government has spent only Rs 1,515 crore in the four years since the scheme’s launch, as revealed by the ministry in response to an RTI query by this reporter. It is less than 5 percent of the announcement which made headlines.

The physical targets were for the year 2022. However, a report tabled in the Lok Sabha in March last year by the Standing Committee on Energy noted that the committee was “extremely disappointed with the dismal performance of the ministry under this scheme”.

Against the target of 10,000 MW of grid connected solar power plants under component A, only 27.75 MW could be installed. Under component B, against the target of 20 lakh standalone solar pumps, only 78,940 pumps have been installed. And under component C, against the target of 15 lakh grid-connected solar agriculture pumps, only 1,026 pumps had been solarized. 

Component A achieved 0.2 percent of its target, component B reached 3.9 percent, and component C met only 0.05 percent of its goal.

The ‘largest’ pension scheme, with few beneficiaries

In the interim budget presented in February 2019, then finance minister Piyush Goyal had announced the Pradhan Mantri Shram-Yogi Maandhan – a pension scheme for unorganised workers to be implemented by the labour ministry.

“Our government proposes to launch a mega pension yojana namely ‘Pradhan Mantri Shram-Yogi Maandhan’ for the unorganised sector workers with monthly income up to Rs 15,000. This pension yojana shall provide them an assured monthly pension of Rs 3,000 from the age of 60 years on a monthly contribution of a small affordable amount during their working age…It is expected that at least 10 crore labourers and workers in the unorganised sector will avail the benefit of ‘Pradhan Mantri Shram-Yogi Maandhan’ within the next five years making it one of the largest pension schemes of the world.”

The minister anticipated that “at least 10 crore citizens” would join the scheme within five years, but only 45 lakh have enrolled so far, according to the scheme’s dashboard.

It’s not clear if this low subscription rate is due to the scheme being voluntary or due to the pension benefit being just Rs 3,000 per month after 30 years – which considering an inflation rate of 5 percent per annum would be worth Rs 695 today.

The Jal Jeevan Mission and the devil in details 

In her budget speech on February 1, 2021, Sitharaman announced the Jal Jeevan Mission (Urban), two years after the Jal Jeevan Mission was announced with an initial focus on increasing tap water availability in rural areas. It was launched as the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation 2.0, or AMRUT 2.0, with a total indicative outlay of Rs 2,87,000 crore over five years from financial year 2021-22. It was to be implemented by the ministry of housing and urban affairs.

“The Jal Jeevan Mission (Urban) will be launched. It aims at universal water supply in all 4,378 urban local bodies with 2.86 crores household tap connections, as well as liquid waste management in 500 AMRUT cities. It will be implemented over five years, with an outlay of Rs 2,87,000 crores,” she said.

However, the central outlay was just Rs 76,760 crore – 26 percent of the announced amount. States had to bear 74 percent of the fiscal burden, a reality not reflected in the headlines.

More importantly, the actual spending has remained significantly lower than the announced central burden. AMRUT 2.0, spanning from 2021-22 to 2025-26, has only one year remaining, yet the government has spent and allocated only around Rs 27,000 crore so far.

In 2021-22, the actual central spending was Rs 7,280 crore, down to Rs 6,500 crore the next year, and Rs 5,200 crore the subsequent year. It increased to Rs 8,000 crore in the current financial year.

The hostels on hold

In her latest budget speech, Sitharaman said the government will rope in private players to set up more working women hostels – a scheme has been in place since 1972 to support working women by providing grants for hostel construction and expansion in areas with job opportunities, but the government performance had been poor. The working women hostel scheme had been renamed as the Sakhi Niwas scheme in 2017. The WCD ministry is responsible for implementing it.

“We will facilitate higher participation of women in the workforce through setting up of working women hostels in collaboration with industry, and establishing creches,” said the minister, in remarks that made headlines. 

However, in response to a question, the centre informed the Rajya Sabha on July 24 this year that no new working women hostels had been sanctioned in the last two years, and only 13 Sakhi Niwas hostels have been constructed in the past five years.

Sakhi Niwas is a centrally-sponsored and demand-driven scheme for WWH, operating with states and UTs assessing needs and forwarding proposals which the centre approves based on guidelines. But these Sakhi Niwas hostels are unevenly spread.

According to the government’s reply to a Rajya Sabha MP on March 16, 2022, there are 500 functional Sakhi working women hostels in India. 

Bihar, with a population larger than the UK and France combined, and where the NDA has been in power for the larger part of the last two decades, has no Sakhi Niwas hostel, just like Tripura, Uttarakhand, and Jammu and Kashmir. Kerala, on the other hand, has the highest number at 114, accounting for over 20 percent of the total facilities in the country.

The lack of such facilities could be attributed to states’ failure to submit proposals, but Uttarakhand’s proposals for two WWH in 2020-21 – when the BJP was in power – were not approved by the centre.

In 2019, minister Piyush Goyal informed the Rajya Sabha that no WWH had been built in any special economic zone over the last five years.

PM MITRA: Extended deadlines, and an assumption

In her February 2021 speech, Nirmala Sitharaman had announced the mega investment textiles parks (MITRA) scheme to boost the textile industry, attract investments, and generate employment, with seven parks to be established over three years.

Seven months later, the cabinet approved the scheme, stating in a press release that seven such parks would be set up over five years with a budget of Rs 4,445 crore.

However, last month, the government informed the Rajya Sabha that the timeline for establishing the seven PM MITRA parks had changed again, extended to seven years.

While there has been extensive coverage of the budget announcement on the PM MITRA park, headlines rarely mention the change in target years.

Additionally, it is claimed that seven such parks will generate 21 lakh jobs, with each park creating 1 lakh direct and 2 lakh indirect jobs, totaling 3 lakh jobs per park. Asked about the methodology behind this figure, the textile ministry stated in reply to an RTI that the textile industry is labour-intensive and “assumed” that each acre would generate 200 direct jobs. 

But even if this assumption is accurate, it would result in only 2 lakh jobs per park, not the projected 3 lakh, as each PM MITRA park is planned to be at least 1,000 acres.

Natural farming: High hopes, low harvests

“In the next two years, 1 crore farmers across the country will be initiated into natural farming supported by certification and branding. Implementation will be through scientific institutions and willing gram panchayats…10,000 need-based bio-input resource centers will be established,” Sitharaman said in her budget speech last month.

But her February 2023 budget speech, which had the same targets, had set the goal for the “next three years”. Did it mean no farmer had started natural farming over the 18-month period between the two speeches?

Additionally, while the minister referred to 10,000 centres in February 2023 and July this year, a report tabled in March 2023 by the standing committee on agriculture, animal husbandry and food processing had stated that the agriculture department had planned to establish 15,000 centres.

Natural farming has been consistently mentioned in budget speeches since 2019, with February 2021 being an exception. However, there has been little progress on the ground.

In the 2023-24 budget, Rs 469 crore was allocated for the national mission for natural farming, but in the revised estimates for the same year, this amount was slashed to Rs 100 crore – a 78 percent reduction in spending.

“Chemical-free natural farming will be promoted throughout the country, with a focus on farmers’ lands in 5-km wide corridors along river Ganga, at the first stage,” the finance minister said in her budget speech in February 2022. “Zero-budget natural farming (mentioned in the July 2019 budget) shall also be included. The portal on ‘jaivik kheti’ – an online national organic products market – will also be strengthened,” she said in February 2020. “We shall go back to basics on one count: zero budget farming. We need to replicate this innovative model through which, in a few states, farmers are already being trained in this practice. Steps such as this can help in doubling our farmers’ income in time for our 75th year of Independence,” the minister said in her July 2019 budget speech.

But despite regular mentions, progress on the ground remains slow. 

According to the government’s response to the Lok Sabha in August 2023, the total area covered under organic farming was 11,85,700 hectares in both 2021-22 and 2022-23. Not a single hectare was added in 2022-23, despite the finance minister’s announcement to promote chemical-free natural farming, starting with farmers’ lands in 5-km wide corridors along the Ganga River in the budget speech for the year 2022-23.

The online products market portal the minister referred to in 2020 has only 8,565 buyers four-and-a-half years later. While 6.2 lakh farmers are registered, half of them are from Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh. There are only 22 farmers from Punjab.

Deep Ocean Mission and shallow promises

The United Nations has declared the decade 2021-2030 as the decade of ocean science for sustainable development. In her budget speech in February 2021, Sitharaman had said, “Our oceans are a storehouse of living and non-living resources. To better understand this realm, we will launch a Deep Ocean Mission with a budget outlay of more than Rs 4,000 crores, over five years. This mission will cover deep ocean survey exploration and projects for the conservation of deep sea biodiversity.”

But years before this announcement, a Press Information Bureau release from May 2017 had said this mission was going to be launched in January 2018. The website of the office of the PM’s principal scientific advisor said that “in 2019”, the government of India had initiated a “Rs 8,000-crore plan to explore the depths of the ocean with multidimensional aims including the exploration of metals and minerals”. 

There were few questions for Sitharaman about the previous announcements.

The ministry of earth sciences was responsible for the scheme. The mission was estimated to cost Rs 4,077 crore over five years, with the first phase, spanning three years from 2021-22 to 2023-24, estimated to cost Rs 2,823.4 crore. But according to an RTI reply, the government spent just Rs 335 crore – only 5.5 percent – of the announced cost from 2021-22 to October 2023.

A standing committee took a harsh view of the physical targets in a report tabled in parliament in March 2023. “As regards physical targets and achievement, the committee observed that the physical performance of the ministry has been extremely disheartening.”

National Recruitment Agency: A distant dream

The government announced the National Recruitment Agency in a budget speech on February 1, 2020. “To mitigate their hardship, it is proposed to set up a National Recruitment Agency (NRA) as an independent, professional, specialist organisation for conduct of a computer-based online common eligibility test for recruitment to non- gazetted posts,” the minister said. 

PM Modi had hailed it as “a boon for millions of young people” while home minister Amit Shah tweeted that the NRA was an “unprecedented step”.

But four years since the announcement, the agency is yet to conduct a single exam. No regional centre was established by the ministry of personnel, public grievances and pensions, as detailed by this reporter in another piece.

The centre had sanctioned Rs 1,517.57 crore for the agency for a three-year period starting in 2020. Four years later, in the ongoing budget session, the government informed parliament that the NRA had spent only Rs 38.85 crore over the past three years.

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