On December 10, 2020, the central government accepted that the three laws opposed by farmers are made for traders, said farmers’ leaders at Singhu border stressing that this confirmed the doubts that Indian farmers had harboured for the past six months.

During a press conference earlier in the day, Union Food & Public Distribution Minister Piyush Goyal attempted to dismiss farmers’ claims that the central government had no right to pass these laws by stating that “the central government has the power to enact laws under the Concurrent list for trade, particularly in foodstuffs.”

However, farmers’ leaders argued a rebuttal that this very fact made the laws “unconstitutional.”

“Today the government accepted that they made these laws for trade and commerce – the thirty-third item in the Concurrent list. However, this makes any further talks about amendments moot. Agriculture is an item under the State list. This means the central government has no right to make farming laws,” said President of Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) Balbir Singh Rajewal.

Regarding encouragement of private sector activity in agriculture, the farmers’ leader pointed out that the APMC Act already has a clause for allowing private investment in farming, making the recently passed laws redundant.

“There is no need to create a parallel market for private companies. The central government’s statement today has proved that we are right,” said farmers.

Similarly, President of Krantikari Kisan Union Darshan Pal said, “We warn the government against stopping fellow protesters from marching towards Delhi in coming days. Farmers do not want these laws. We never asked for privatisation in farming.”

Speaking about future protests, farmers’ leader Boota Singh said that farmers have resolved to block railway tracks. The Sanyukta Kisan Morcha will soon announce a fixed date for the same.

Meanwhile, a press release released by the All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee (AIKSCC) also condemned the Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar for stating that the three laws were welcomed by farmers across the country despite nationwide protests.

The pan-India protests showed that working-class people also understood the threats of these laws, said the organisation. They said that farmer organisations representing 20 crore farming households have rejected these laws.

They also ridiculed Goyal for saying that the Prime Minister’s visionary steps had resulted in higher farm productivity during the pandemic.

“Either the Minister does not know how hard farmers struggled to reach these productivity levels despite numerous government-imposed hurdles – from harvesting to marketing – or he is joining Modi in trying to steal credit for the hard-work of farmers. In either case, he must be history’s most anti-farmer Farmer Welfare Minister,” they said.

They also accused Goyal of spreading a false narrative that the government has ensured fees for private mandis when the government’s proposal recommended that state governments have the liberty to levy fees on private mandis. The AIKSCC expressed dismay at government officials discussing political events in West Bengal during a government press conference.

“It is clear that the authoritarian BJP government has forgotten the line that divides the party from the government,” they said.

Related:

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Brazil and Canadian Unions promise their support to Indian farmers
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‘Samundar Bandh’ if gov’t does not listen to farmers: Fishworkers show solidarity

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Karnataka farmers, workers have called for a state-wide bandh on September 28 to condemn the “anti-farmer, anti-worker and anti-Dalit-oppressed policies of Central and state governments.”

While farmers all over the country agitate against the three agriculture Bills forcefully passed by the Centre, Karnataka peasants fight an additional battle against the state amendments to the APMC and land reform Acts. To show their dissent, farmers, workers and Dalits intend to protest from 6 AM to 6 PM on Monday.

“All the people of Karnataka are requested to express their solidarity to it [bandh] by observing the bandh in every village, town and city in order to protect the livelihoods of the working population of the state,” said multiple marginalised organisations in a leaflet.

As per the document, the people fear the handing over of agricultural land to the rich. They alleged that Yediyurappa’s government is following the policy of “all land for the rich” instead of the “land for the tiller” policy. Other concerns to be raised during the bandh are the loss of farmers’ produce in the corporate network; corporate bondage; workers’ enslavement; privatisation of electricity; commercialisation of education and the imposition of Hindi.

“Instead of streamlining APMC, the existing minimum protections are being removed, and corporate markets are being allowed,” said the leaflet.

The organisations warned that these changes in policies would rob Dalits and the oppressed off of the few rights they have and contribute to the decline of the agriculture state of India.

Eager to have the oppressed voices heard, the organisers appealed to the citizens to join the bandh and unanimously condemn the “anti-farmer, anti-worker, anti-Dalit, anti-oppressed, anti-student and anti-youth policies.”

Related:

Farm Bills are an attempt to snatch away the right to food: Sujan Chakraborty
Four states gear up to resist ‘anti-farmer’ bills
Reduce essential service cost, unburden the poor: Swaraj India
K’taka farmers demand better policies and prices

The post Karnataka Bandh against ‘anti-farmer, anti-worker and anti-Dalit-oppressed’ policies appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Representation Image

Krishna Dongare, resident of Nagarsul in Yeola tehsil, said he burnt the crop in his 2.5 acres farm yesterday because the prices had crashed.

"I have spent Rs three lakh on the onion crop in my field, but traders have stopped buying the produce in auctions. Farmers are staging road blockades in the district demanding better prices. The demand was also hit by the demonetisation. If I sold my crop today, I would get only Rs 60,000," Dongare said.

Jaydutta Holkar, chairperson of Lasalgaon's agricultural produce market committee, said onion prices were falling for the past several days and farmers were not recovering even the input costs.

Onion prices have fallen to Rs 100-150 per quintal at some places. APMC centres in the district including those at Mungse and Zodge have stopped auctions of onion, as it is not possible to send the crop to markets across the country due to shortage of railway waggons, traders had said yesterday.

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धरना स्थल पर सोमवार को किसान 1 लाख किलो शिमला मिर्च, टमाटर, पत्तागोभी, बरबट्टी, लौकी, मिर्च तथा केला जनता को बाटेंगे। किसान संघ दरअसल 2 लाख किलो सब्जी 60 गाड़ियों में लाकर बांटना चाहता था परन्तु प्रशासन ने केवल 30 गाड़ी सब्जी बांटने की ही अनुमति दी है।
 
रायपुर के बूढ़ा तालाब स्थित धरना स्थल पर सुबह के 11 बजे से जनता को मुफ्त सब्जी बांटी जायेगी। एक व्यक्ति को केवल 5 किलो तक सब्जी दी जायेगी। इसके लिये किसान संघ ने घर से थैले लेकर आने का आव्हान् किया है। गौरतलब है कि इससे पहले छत्तीसगढ़ के दुर्ग तथा पत्थलगांव में किसानों ने सैकड़ों ट्रक टमाटर सड़कों पर उड़ेलकर अपना विरोध प्रदर्शन किया था। सोमवार को प्रगतिशील युवा किसान संघ मुख्यमंत्री को एक ज्ञापन भी सौंपेगा।
 
छत्तीसगढ़ कि किसान नेता नंदकुमार कश्यप ने इस विरोध प्रदर्शन पर कहा है दरअसल किसान आम जनता को यह संदेश देना चाह रहे हैं कि वे तबाही के कगार पर पहुंच गये हैं। किसानों ने बीज, खाद व अपनी मेहनत से जिस फसल को तैयार किया है नगदी एवं चिल्हर की समस्या के कारण उसका सही मोल नहीं मिल पा रहा है। नोटबंदी के बाद से ट्रांसपोर्ट व्यवसाय भी ठप्प पड़ गया है इसलिये किसानों अपने फसल को बाहर भी नहीं भेज पा रहें हैं। किसानों की तबाही गांवों में गहराते आर्थिक संकट का संकेत है। जिसका राज्य के ग्रामीण अर्थव्यवस्था, किसानों की क्रयशक्ति पर विपरीत प्रभाव पड़ेगा।
 
Courtesy: National Dastak
 
उन्होंने कहा कि आज किसान मुफ्त में सब्जी बांट रहें हैं इसका अर्थ होता है कि उनके पास अगली फसल के लिये बीज, चारा तथा खाद किये पैसे नहीं हैं। आने वाले समय में राज्य में सब्जियों की कमी होगी इतना तय है। नंदकुमार कश्यप ने कहा आज जो रायपुर में हो रहा है दरअसल वह पूरे राज्य के किसानों के दर्द है। पूरे छत्तीसगढ़ के किसान व सब्जी उत्पादक इस बार भयंकर मंदी का सामना कर रहें हैं।
 
छत्तीसगढ़ के एक और किसान नेता आनंद मिश्रा का कहना है कि आज के विरोध प्रदर्शन के बाद क्या होगा वह ज्यादा महत्वपूर्ण है। यही किसान इसके बाद किसानी से तौबा करने लगेंगे। पलायन करने के लिये मजबूर हो जायेंगे, कहीं मजदूरी करने लगेंगे। यदि अन्न उत्पादकों को, सब्जी उत्पादकों को बाजार की मंदी से सुरक्षा प्रदान नहीं की जाती है तो राज्य धीरे-धीरे खाद्य संकट की बढ़ता जायेगा। आज किसानों को कैश चाहिये जिससे भविष्य में उत्पादन को जारी रखा जा सके। यदि वे ही तबाह हो जायेंगे तो निकट भविष्य में सब्जी कौन उगायेगा, जनता कहां से सब्जी खरीदेगी?
 

The post नोटबंदी की मार: छत्तीसगढ़ में फ्री सब्जी बांटने को मजबूर किसान appeared first on SabrangIndia.

• No more than 4.9% of farmers control 32% of India’s farmland.
• A “large” farmer in India has 45 times more land than the “marginal” farmer.
• 101.4 million–or 56.4%–of rural households own no agricultural land.
• Only 12.9% of land marked–the size of Gujarat–for takeover from landlords was taken over by December 2015.
• Five million acres—half the size of Haryana—was given to 5.78 million poor farmers by December 2015.

What has largely failed nationwide—with the exception of West Bengal—over 54 years since a land-redistribution law was passed is not likely to improve, according to data in a response this correspondent received to a right-to-information (RTI) application filed with the Department of Land Resources of the Indian government’s Ministry of Rural Development.
 
The average land given to the rural landless is small and falling, from 0.95 acres in 2002 to 0.88 acres in 2015—a 7.4% drop over 13 years–and a slowdown is evident in the process of taking land away from rich landlords, the RTI data reveal.
 
As of December 2015, land declared “surplus” (meaning, it could be taken away from landlords) across India stood at 6.7 million acres; the government took over 6.1 million acres; and distributed 5.1 million acres—less than half the area of Haryana, or five-and-a-half times the area of Goa—to 5.78 million people.
 

Source: 2002, 2007, 2015
(*The data for 2006 were sourced from the website of Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India, from the hyperlink titled “Other Land Reform Programmes”, as accessed on 5^th February 2016. However, the link was recently removed)
 

Screenshot from the website of the Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India
 
Similarly, the land declared surplus has fallen over the years. Between 1973 and 2002, an average of 150,000 acres was declared surplus, and an average of 140,000 acres was distributed every year. In contrast, between 2002 and 2015, the land declared surplus every year was 4,000 acres, while land in government possession and distributed declined by 29,000 acres and 24,000 acres per year, respectively
 
This means that there is less land declared surplus every year over the past 13 years and what was once a growing trend of government possession and distribution has reversed.
 

 
Source: 1973, 2002, 2007, 2015
(*The data for 2006 were sourced from the website of Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India, from the hyperlink titled “Other Land Reform Programmes”, as accessed on 5^th February 2016. However, the link was recently removed)
 
The slowdown and fluctuations in land-distribution data over the years are usually because of disputes over how much is to be taken away; courts restored some land to original owners; and some land was unfit for cultivation, according to this 2009 report from the Centre for Rural Studies, Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA), Mussoorie.
 
The surplus land under litigation increased by 23.4%, from 920,000 acres to 1.14 million acres between 2007 and 2009. Some states, such as Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Gujarat and Maharashtra, created land tribunals to quickly settle such cases.
 
Irrespective of the fluctuations, the land declared surplus, up to 2015, is 12.9% of 51.9 million acres—almost the size of Gujarat—the land that should be taken away from landlords, the LBSNAA estimated as cited in the report of the Committee on State Agrarian Relations and Unfinished Task of Land Reforms from 2009. The land in government possession and land distributed is 11.7% and 9.8%, respectively of the 51.9 million acres that should be declared surplus.
 

Almost three decades ago in 1990, Radheshyam, 49, was given half an acre of farm land free in his village of Bebar in the western Uttar Pradesh district of Mainpuri. In 1995, rainwater filled a nearby pond and flooded his land. Since then, Radheshyam moved to Agra, 113 km to the west, and worked whatever job he could find. Steeped in debt, he now believes that the land he got after the Uttar Pradesh Zamindari Abolition and Land Reforms Act, 1950, was too little to change his life.
 
Why land is important to further economic progress
 
As many as 570 million Indians, or 47.1% (including 6.7% in urban areas), still depend on agriculture, which contributes 15% to Gross Domestic Product (GDP), according to this 2011-12 National Sample Survey Office 2011-12 report and 2011 census data.
 
South Korea and Taiwan—and Japan before them—implemented sweeping land reforms before transforming agriculture and moving their people to manufacturing, Jayati Ghosh, a professor at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University, wrote in this 1997 column for the Economic and Political Weekly. As agriculture’s importance diminished, agricultural productivity kept rising.
 
“This was not only because of the institutional changes which released productive energies, but also because of the role of the government in increasing public investment levels in agriculture, providing subsidised fertiliser and pesticide inputs, supporting agricultural research and extension services, assisting in the organisation of co-operatives, and similar measures,” Ghosh wrote.
 

 
Source: Agriculture Census 2010-11: Phase 1
 
But as India tries to ramp up manufacturing–through programmes such as Make in India–the failure of land reforms may worsen rural poverty.
 
101.4 million rural Indian households have no agricultural land
 
As many as 95.1% of Indian farmers are called “marginal, small and semi-medium”, meaning they own up to 2.47, 4.94 and 9.88 acres of land, respectively. These farmers own 68.2% of cultivated land, while 4.9% “medium and large” (owning up to 24.71, or more than 24.71 acres, respectively) farmers own 31.8% of cultivated land, according to the 2011-12 agriculture census.
 
A “large” farmer on average has 45 times more land than a “marginal” farmer, as we already said, and 101.4 million–or 56.4%–rural households own no agricultural land, according to the socio-economic caste census 2011.
 
A national law that guides the land a farmer can own was passed in 1972. It recommended that farmers should own between 10 and 18 acres of irrigated land with two crops, 27 acres of irrigated land with one crop and 54 acres for dry land.
 
The surplus land was to be taken away by state governments and distributed to the rural landless, identified by village panchayats. Land ceilings varied by state and land quality.
 

 
West Bengal—land-reforms champion—gives rural landless area larger than Goa
 
The RTI response received by this correspondent reveals that West Bengal has outperformed other states.
 
It has declared the most land “surplus” (1.41 million acres, or nearly one-and-a-half times the area of Goa), and accounts for 21% of such land so declared nationwide.
 
West Bengal has taken possession of 1.32 million acres, 93.6% of land declared surplus statewide, and distributed 1.05 million acres, 79.8% of the land in the state’s possession.
 
West Bengal also accounts for more than half (54.2%) of India’s land-reform beneficiaries. As many as 3.14 million of the rural, landless got free land over 60 years.
 
The Draft National Land Reforms Policy has credited West Bengal, Kerala and Jammu and Kashmir for having performed best in surplus land distribution.
 
Jammu and Kashmir is the worst performer, according to data from the RTI reply, which is also riddled with inaccuracies.
 

• For Jharkhand, it says no “surplus” land was declared and taken over—yet it shows 860 acres distributed among 1,316 beneficiaries.
• For Karnataka, land distributed is more than that declared “surplus” and taken over by the government.
• For Punjab, land taken over and distributed is more than land declared surplus.

These inconsistencies raise concerns over the reporting and verification of surplus land declaration and distribution nationwide.
 
The draft National Land Reforms Policy, prepared in 2013, suggests policy correctives:
 

• Stopping land-holding exemptions to religious, educational, charitable, research and industrial organisations beyond 15 acres;
• Allowing smaller land-holdings in states where the existing limit is more than five to 10 acres for irrigated land and 10 to 15 acres for non-irrigated land;
• A “single-window” to redistribute surplus land within a specified time;
• A crackdown on benami—in someone else’s name—land;
• A database of land inventories available for public scrutiny.

Update: The sentence suggesting that 56.4% rural households own no land has been updated to clarify that they own no agricultural land.
 
(Chaturvedi is an independent journalist and a blogger at opiniontandoor.in)

Article first appeard on IndiaSpend.com

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Maharashtra is divided into five geographical regions, comprising six administrative divisions—Konkan, Pune, Nashik, Marathwada (Aurangabad) and Vidarbha (Amravati and Nagpur).
 
The Vidarbha region reported the most farmer suicides, 1,541, in 2015. Nagpur (362) and Amravati (1,179) witnessed the maximum farmer suicides in the Vidarbha region.
 
Vidarbha was followed by Aurangabad (1,130) that forms the Marathwada region.
 
As many as 89 farmers ended their lives in Marathwada in January this year.  The Farmers Distress Management Task Force, appointed by the state government, blamed the deaths on the “collective failure of government officials”.
 

15 farmers died every day in 2014

As many as 5,650 Indian farmers committed suicide in 2014, or 15 farmers a day, according to data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).
 
The top five major causes of farmer suicides in 2014 were bankruptcy or indebtedness (1,163), family problems (1135), farming-related issues (969)–such as failure of crops, distress due to natural calamities, inability to sell produce, illness (745) and drug abuse and/alcoholic addiction (250).
 
Bankruptcy or indebtedness was also a major cause for farmer suicides (857) in Maharashtra in 2014.
 
 
Bankruptcy or indebtedness from crop loans accounted for 765 deaths, followed by non-agricultural loans (76) and equipment loans (16).
 
The estimated average amount of outstanding loan per agricultural household in Maharashtra was Rs 54,700, above the national average of Rs 47,000/-, based on the Situation Assessment Survey of Agricultural Households during January-December 2013 by the National Sample Survey Organisation of the Ministry of Statistics.
 
Bankruptcy was followed by family problems (671), farming-related issues (352), illness (241) and drug abuse/alcoholic addiction (173) among the top five causes for farmer suicides in Maharashtra.
 

Five states account for 89% of Indian farmer suicides

Of the 5,650 farmers who committed suicide in 2014, 66% (3,712) were between 30 and 60 years of age, while 23% (1,300) were 18 to 30 years old.
 
Maharashtra reported the most (2,568) farmer suicides, in 2014, followed by Telangana (898), Madhya Pradesh (826), Chhattisgarh (443) and Karnataka (321).

 
 
These top five states account for 89% of all farmer suicides in the country in 2014. With a hard year ahead, those figures are unlikely to improve.
 

As worst water crisis in decade unfolds, farmers will struggle

India is facing the worst water crisis in a decade with 91 major reservoirs having no more than 29% water, IndiaSpend reported recently.
 
Jayakwadi dam in Aurangabad district in Marathwada, which is witnessing the worst drought in a century, has only 1% water left of its 2.17 billion cubic metre capacity, IndiaSpend reported in January.
 
As many as 246 districts in ten states across the country have already been declared drought-affected in 2015-16, according to this Lok Sabha reply on March 10, 2016.
 
Of these, 21 districts in Maharashtra, or 15,747 villages, are drought-affected.
 
The Maharashtra government recently declared 11,962 villages in Vidarbha as drought-affected, according to this Mint report. So 27,723 villages of 43,000 Maharashtra villages in the state are drought-hit.
 
“The drought in Vidarbha is more of an agriculture drought and not hydrological. In Marathwada, it is both agriculture and hydrological,” Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said. “The government has allocated Rs 1,000 crore for immediate relief measures in these villages and more funds will be provided after assessment of losses.”

(Mallapur is an analyst with IndiaSpend.)

Courtesy: IndiaSpend.com

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Someone’s income will surely double by 2022. But, contrary to the crazy claim, it won’t be the farmer but India’s new dollar billionaires.

So that’s it, then. From this year, there will no more be a ‘Statement of Revenue Foregone’ in the Union budget. There is indeed Rs 5,51,000 crore written off in corporate income tax, excise and customs duties. As always, mainly to the benefit of the rich. That’s even higher than last year’s Rs 5,00,823 crore in these same giveaways. But you are no longer allowed to say this is revenue foregone. Call it that and this government could actually dub you an anti-national. The word ‘foregone’, the regime’s little spin-doctors found, was damaging. It gave the game away by revealing huge corporate freebies to the public. So with this budget, ‘foregone’ is forever gone. We now have ‘The Statement of Revenue Impact of Tax Incentives under the Central Tax System’.

Gee! That sounds more sophisticated. But it’s still the same thing. The corporate karza maafi continues. The amo­unts are higher. And the total since 2005-06 is well over Rs 42 trillion. A stench by any other name smells just the same.

The revenue ‘impact’ in terms of direct corporate income tax write-offs, for instance, is Rs 68,711 crore. That’s Rs 3,644 crore more than it was last year. Not much less than the ‘massive increase’ in NREGA (Rs 3,801 crore). The latter involves the survival of millions, the former of a few corporations. This direct corporate income tax write-off is also 91 per cent higher than the Rs 35,984 crore given to ‘agriculture and farmers’ welfare’.

The government falsely claims that the Rs 38,500 crore given to NREGA in this budget is the highest ever. Truth: the allocation was roughly Rs 40,000 crore in 2006 when it was, in fact, a smaller programme. It kept close to that for a while, before P. Chidambaram worked hard at undermining it. The ‘increase’ shrinks pretty fast if you adjust it for inflation. Also, in a year when even the government speaks of high rural distress, an upward blip in spending is natural. Even in Maharashtra with its wretched NREGA performance, more and more people are seeking work under the programme. In any case, over Rs 6,000 crore of this ‘record’ sum will go in meeting pending liabilities.

Alongside this fiddle comes the crazy claim of doubling farmers’ incomes by 2022. Does the finance minister mean real income after adjusting for price rise? And how? At the heart of their crisis is how unviable farming is being rendered—by policy. Will he honour his party’s promise and boost the MSP? Will he reduce the burden of farmers locked into a high-cost econ­omy—give them access to better credit and cheaper seed, fertiliser and other inputs? There is not a hint in the budget. The lion’s share of ‘agricultural credit’ goes to urban and metro-based businesses. And the promised irrigated land—will that be done by renovation of tank systems and the like (that can be linked to the NREGA)? Or through the river-linking delusions that pro­­mise a giant bonanza for contractors but little irrigation?

Yet, dozens of anchors and editorials blather on about this being a pro-farmer, pro-rural budget. As they have every second or third year for two decades. ‘Pro-farmer’ budget should ring a warning bell. It is usually followed by further handing over of agriculture to agri-business. And terrible times for farmers. Somebody’s incomes will indeed double by 2022. It won’t be the farmers, betrayed on the increased MSP that the BJP promised them in its 2014 poll campaign. It could be India’s 111 dollar billionaires listed in the latest Hurun report. Their wealth grew by 25 per cent in a single year, the report says. And of 99 new dollar billionaires across the world added to the list since last year, 27, or nearly a third, are Indians.

The combined wealth of these 111 rose by $62 billion in 12 months to arrive at $308 billion in Hurun’s reckoning. Now, if just that increase was taxed at 30 per cent (which would be standard practice in Europe), it would come to a bit over $18 billion. Or about Rs 1,22,774 crore. Still less than a fourth of the ‘impact’ write-offs for the better-off this year. But enough to exp­and the rural employment programme by more than threefold in a year of great distress.

Gold, diamonds and jewellery write-offs are Rs 61,126 crore. That’s 58 per cent more than the greatest allocation ‘ever’ for the NREGA. And nearly 70 per cent higher than the sum for ‘agriculture and farmers’ welfare’. Since 2005-06, the amount written off as duties on gold, diamonds and jewellery comes to over 4.6 trillion rupees. More than 13 times this year’s allocation for ‘agriculture and farmers’ welfare’. If this is a pro-farmer budget, you’d hate to see what they call an anti-farmer one.
 
And remember these are not billed as ‘subsidies’, though that is very much what they are. When the government attacks ‘subsidies’, those are the ones going mainly to the poor. Food, employment, health and more. Those shilling for such a heartless assault call these “wasteful subsidies”. The ‘revenue impact’ rubbish they call “incentives”. Subsidies are what you give the poor. What they’re trying is to replace universal systems with ‘targeting’, which excludes tens of millions in need. On the other hand, ‘impact’ subsidies (aka Godzilla write-offs), those keep rising each year. The total revenue ‘impact’ write-offs this year are 140 per cent higher than revenue forgone in 2005-06, the first year for which such data is available.

In the total amount foregone to the better-off under corporate income tax, excise and customs duty since 2005-06, you could run the NREGA for about 109 years on present levels. You could transform tens of millions of lives for the better. Dropping ‘foregone’ and hiding behind the fig leaf of ‘revenue impact’ adds more than insult to injury. (In the first place, it ought to have been ‘forgone’ and not ‘foregone’. But that’s another story).It introduces a Kafkaesque idiocy to the process. Decades ago, when the US military needed to make its many wars more acceptable, or at least less shocking, they came up with the words “collateral damage”. A euphemism for countless thousands of civilians they killed in their wars. The slaughter continued, but sounded so much nicer. The authors of the budget’s sleazy semantics do something similar in their wordplay. The loot of public money, where it’s going, and the intense misery of millions in need—that drowns in collateral cliches.

The writer is a Rural Reporter and founder of People's Archive of Rural India.

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