Social sectors ignored; new chapter on natural resources sets off alarm bells

The peripheral status of social sectors, such as education and health, was re-emphasised in the Survey.

The survey, focusing on the previous fiscal, has only small segments on the need for increasing quality education under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan that was also mentioned by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in his Budget speech last year; need for more access to sanitation, especially for women; and the need for better health system delivery.

Experts on social sectors felt the Survey was “hiding information rather than revealing information about what has happened on the ground.”

However, even as the Survey repeatedly accepts the failure of the State in providing access to these essential services, it fails to give a policy direction. “A second distinctive feature of the Indian economic model is the weakness of State capacity, especially in delivering essential services such as health and education,” it accepted.

“Social sectors have been completely ignored. We don’t know what happened last year, which is critical for planning,” Ravi Duggal, Country Coordinator of the International Budget Partnership, said.

The Survey has also admitted the low level of expenditure on both education and health, which are standing at 2.9 per cent and 1.4 per cent, respectively, according to data from the Reserve Bank of India. This expenditure on health, however, is a far shot from the target of 2.5 per cent of GDP.

Esoteric debates on social sector are being seen as an attempt to hide conflicting and jarring reports on the sectors, experts felt.

“On state capacity, delivery of essential services such as health and education, which are predominantly the preserve of State governments, remains impaired,” the Survey said.

However, this oft-repeated Centre-State power divide, too is not taken kindly. T Sundararaman, Dean - School of Health Systems Studies, said, “They always keep saying it’s a State subject, but the Centre has not done enough to give oversight and push on critical health schemes.”

A new chapter on natural resources has also left alarm bells ringing. The current government has taken several steps to ease mining on various counts — by easing environmental regulations, and taking measures that also infringe on tribal rights. This chapter is being seen as an attempt to create an argument for opening up of mining in resource-rich but economically poor States such as Jharkhand and Odisha.

Describing the chapter as “sinister”, Duggal said, “It seems to be an attempt to allow exploitation of mineral wealth, taking away control of resources from local people. Under the District Mining Fund, some of the profits can then be used as a cash compensation using something like the Universal Basic Income tool.”

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