BUDGET 2012-13 ANALYSIS FROM THE RESULT ANGEL OF LIFE & HARIT PRAYAS!

BUDGET 2012-13 ANALYSIS FROM THE RESULT ANGEL OF LIFE & HARIT PRAYAS
Result components of HARIT PRAYAS & LIFE	Budget 2012-13  in relation with result component	Impact & possibilities on LIFE & HARIT PRAYAS  project
1. 1.Agriculture( Sustainable )Development	This is what Pranab Mukherjee said on Agriculture in the Budget 2012 document I now take up agriculture. Agriculture will continue to be a priority for the Government. The total plan outlay for the Department of Agriculture and Cooperation is being increased by 18 per cent from Rs 17,123 crore in 2011-12 to Rs 20,208 crore in 2012-13. The outlay for Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY) is being increased from Rs 7,860 crore in 2011-12 to Rs 9,217 crore in 2012-13. I am happy to inform the House that the initiative of Bringing Green Revolution to Eastern India (BGREI) has resulted in a significant increase in production and productivity of paddy. States in eastern India have reported additional paddy production of seven million tonnes in Kharif 2011. I propose to increase the allocation for this scheme from Rs 400 crore in 2011-12 to Rs 1000 crore in 2012-13. The Government intends to merge the remaining activities into a set of missions to address the needs of agricultural development in the Twelfth Five Year Plan. These missions are: 1.        National Food Security Mission which aims to bridge the yield gap in respect of paddy, wheat, pulses, millet and fodder. The ongoing Integrated Development of Pulses Villages, Promotion of Nutri-cereals and Accelerated Fodder Development Programme would now become a part of this Mission; 2.        National Mission on Sustainable Agriculture (NMSA) including Micro Irrigation is being taken up as a part of the National Action Plan on Climate Change. The Rainfed Area Development Programme will be merged with this; 3.        National Mission on Agricultural Extension and Technology focuses on adoption of appropriate technologies by farmers for improving productivity and efficiency in farm operations; and 4.        National Horticulture Mission (NHM) aims at horticulture diversification. This will also include the initiative on saffron.	·      No major concern on subsidy on organic inputs, but subsidy on synthetic fertilizers has gone down and probably fertilizers would be costly and also would be difficult to get, and target farmers would be inclined more towards the organic inputs. ·         But still government has focus on promotion on fertilizers, just to increase the production; government has main focus on “PRODUCTION INCREASE” rather than on soil health improvement for longer period. ·         National food security mission is seems to be good, but analytically it need more production from agriculture, so again the focus would  be on production mainly through high yielding seeds, synthetic fertilizers. ·         National Mission on Sustainable Agriculture -NMSA would give ample opportunity for the samll and marginalized farmers to avail the facilities of micro-irrigation, Probably our project team could work on it with agriculture departments in the concerned blocks or districts. ·         With NHM both the project team of LIFE & HARIT PRAYAS could work with the forest , Horticulture & agriculture department ( as in the districts the NHM programme is being implimented by these departments) and make target families to get benefit of Bamboo ( bamboo mission is also the part of NHM) in Banswara, other plantations ( fruit & wood) in Bundelkhand region & Ajmer)
1.2. SHGs & Farmer’s club	Bills on micro-finance institutions, national land bank and public debt management among those to be introduced in 2012-13. Infusion of Rs.15,888 crore in public sector banks, regional rural banks and NABARD in 2012-13.	·         Although it seems to be a good bill on micro-finance especially focusing on debt management, but consideration on regulation to micro-finance institution is more prior than the debt management. For example in our project locations of Satna  DPIP ( govt. institution)  has  formed highly poor quality SHGs and just for completing the task of forming number of SHGs  ( 100s of SHGs in a week, with just 10 rupees collection and further no follow-up and this has created a wrong impression on community about the concept of SHG and now people in our HARIT PRAYAS project villages have strong opposition for the concept of SHGs another examples we can see where poor families in Andhra Pradesh are committing suicide because of pressure of loan repayment from micro-finance institutions like SKS) . hence mere debt management is not important, important is regulation on MFI’s and even regulation on government. ·         More fund & support for NABARD and local banks are there, so we have the option to leverage more funds from these institutions and strengthening our linkages.  It would be better if we could directly relate our SHGs & Farmers club with NABARD so that they could be self sustained in the future.
2. Entitlements and government welfare schemes	This is what Pranab Mukherjee said on Social security and the needs of weaker sections in the Budget 2012 document. I am raising the allocation under the National Social Assistance Programme (NSAP) by 37 per cent from Rs 6,158 crore in 2011-12 to Rs 8,447 crore in 2012-13. Under the ongoing Indira Gandhi National Widow Pension Scheme and Indira Gandhi National Disability Pension Scheme for BPL beneficiaries, the monthly pension amount per person is being raised from Rs 200 to Rs 300. On the death of the primary breadwinner of a BPL family, in the age group 18 to 64 years, a lumpsum grant of Rs 10,000 is presently provided under the National Family Benefit scheme (NFBS). I propose to double this amount to Rs 20,000 and expect a matching contribution by the State Governments. In order to promote voluntary savings towards pensions, a co-contributory scheme SWAVALAMBAN was started in September, 2010. Over 5 lakh subscribers have been enrolled by February 2012. In order to enhance access to this scheme, LIC has been appointed as an Aggregator and all Public Sector Banks have also been appointed as Points of Presence (PoP) and Aggregators. MGNREGA The much hyped job guarantee scheme seems to have stabilized, with the Union Budget reducing the allocation after six years of sustained hikes. Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee announced Rs 33,000 crore as MGNREGA allocation, down from 40,000 crore earmarked last year. The total allocation for rural development schemes has gone up to Rs 99,000 crore. The reduced allocation seems to be based on the fall in expenditure in 2011-12 that cost Rs 31,000 crore to the exchequer.	·         37% increase for social security schemes is a big number , but is going to be good only when it would be properly utilised by the eligibile benificiaries. In our LIFE & HARIT PRAYAS project villages we could generate awareness on this increase and could strengthen our training programmes so that even those who are not our target community but are eligible would get the benefit of the schemes. ·         Till now in our project area we have not focussed on National Family Benefit scheme (NFBS), so we could go through the details of this scheme and could start awareness generation programme on the same. ·         Already both LIFE & HARIT PRAYAS are linked with LIC for jeevan madhur insurance scheme for daily wages, now we can think of linking for SWAVALAMBAN. ·         There is decrease in allocation of MGNREGA amount means the amount of work is going to decrease, so it is important that at the Panchayat level proper planning of NREGA must be done and for this we need to strengthen our CBOs to be actively participate in NREGA planning or to present the village level micro-plans to the gram sabha for approval and consideration of work under MGNREGA ·         Reduction of amount for NREGA allocation would also lead to have more corruption!
3.Skill development & employability	The Budget for 2012-13 has doubled allocation under the National Skill Development Fund ( NSDF) and launched a credit guarantee fund for skills development. The government has set a target of imparting skills training to 500 million people by 2022. The Budget doubled infusion into the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDF) to Rs 1,000 crore, raising the corpus of the fund to Rs 2,500 crore.	·         The amount of NSD is doubled now, so there is more scope to get benefit of NSDF for imparting skill development trainings in our project villages. Although till now we are not able to link the target community with the NSDF amount, now we can think of possible linkages and fund leverage. ·         Skill training to 500 millions-could be good options for both HARIT PRAYAS and LIFE project teams.