ASHA workers and facilitators, considered the backbone of the country’s grassroots healthcare system, in an open letter to Union Health Minister JP Nadda, while thanking the government for inviting 250 of them for the Republic Day function, expressed anguish that they were still not recognised as “workers” and were deprived of social security and other benefits.

The AWFFI open letter urged the government to provide a “dignified life and statutory rights”, not just “honour” and reminded the Health Minister that their piece-rated incentives, at around Rs 2,000/month, were last revised 10 years ago, in 2010.

“Isn’t it shameful for our republic which completed 75 years, that the ASHA workers who are working among the people even at the outbreak of pandemics and communicable diseases even without adequate safety gear, are not recognised as employees or workers but are considered ‘volunteers’ and get only piece rate wages called incentives and the assured incentives are only Rs.2000 a month. There is no social security for them, no health insurance and not even maternity leave! We would like to remind you as the minister and the health secretary that the piece rated incentives were last revised in 2010!”

Read the full letter below:

Open Letter to the Health Minister of India

To

Shri J P Nadda

Honorable Minister of Health and Family Welfare

Government of India

Sub:- ASHA Workers deserves a dignified Life with statutory Rights not only ‘Honour’

Dear Sir,

We, the ASHA Workers’ and Facilitators’ Federation of India (AWFFI), the largest trade union federation of the ASHA workers, as the representatives of them would like to thank you, the Health Secretary and the Government of India for inviting ASHA workers as special guests in the 76th Republic Day celebrations in Delhi to ‘honour’ our contribution. We also recall that around 300 anganwadi workers were similarly ‘honoured’ last year on Republic Day.

As per the statement by the Health Secretary, the Health Ministry of Government of India had invited 250 ASHA workers with their spouses from various States as special guests to join the Republic Day celebrations in Delhi, although the criteria for selection is unknown to us.

It is heartening that the Health Secretary acknowledged in the press briefing that the ASHA workers are the backbone of the health sector across the country and display the Nari Shakti (women empowerment). She also mentioned that the ASHA workers are doing incredible job for eradication of Tuberculosis (Tuberculosis Elimination Mission), not only that, the health system of the entire country is now mostly dependent on their efforts, especially in maternal and child care and combating infectious diseases. The selfless dedicated work of ASHA workers during the COVID-19 pandemic, received international recognition by WHO which honored ASHA workers of our country as ‘Global Leaders’.

You may also agree that the around ten lakh twenty nine thousand ASHA workers and facilitators working sincerely across the country deserves a dignified life with statutory rights not only ‘honour’. Isn’t it shameful for our republic which completed 75 years, that the ASHA workers who are working among the people even at the outbreak of pandemics and communicable diseases even without adequate safety gear, are not recognised as employees or workers but are considered ‘volunteers’ and get only piece rate wages called incentives and the assured incentives are only Rs.2000 a month. There is no social security for them, no health insurance and not even maternity leave! We would like to remind you as the minister and the health secretary that the piece rated incentives were last revised in 2010!

Don’t you think it is high time they must be recognised as workers, pay minimum wages and social security and pension as per the recommendation of the 45th Indian Labour Conference (ILC) back in 2013.  

We would like to bring to your notice that even the meagre remuneration for the ASHA workers and facilitators are pending for months in most of the states as the Union Government do not release the funds on time. Scores of ASHA workers sacrificed their lives and the lives of their dear ones during the Covid pandemic, most of their heirs are yet to get the death compensation; the ministry do not have even the record of the number of casualties.

Such ‘honouring’ programmes organized by the Government without addressing the fact that ASHA workers and facilitators are being deprived of their rightful dignity and entitlements will be ridiculed by the ASHA workers and the public.

We hope that your government will really honour the dedicated work of the ASHA workers and Facilitators and take measures to ensure a dignified life with statutory rights at work in the Union Budget 2025-26 which will be placed in a couple of days. ASHA Workers and Facilitators Federation of India is urging the Union Government to increase the financial allocation for the National Health Mission in the ensuing Union Budget 2025 and to take immediate measurers to regularise the ASHA workers and facilitators as government employees with all statutory benefits.

Madhumita Bandyopadhyay

General Secretary, AWFFI

Courtesy: Newsclick

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Peasant organisations criticised the Union Budget 2021-22 on February 1, 2021, for completely disregarding the suffering and demands of the people and implying more by what was not mentioned in the Finance Minister’s speech.

The All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) said the Budget offered nothing new for the agriculture sector. It decreased the budgeted allocation from Rs 1,34,349 crore in 2020-21 to Rs 1,22,961 crore in 2021-22. This means there was an overall reduction of 8 percent in allocations towards agriculture.

“The government appears to be following a strategy of squeezing the peasantry. There are no major additional allocations in agriculture or major new schemes. The coronavirus lockdown period had seen the Indian peasant show stellar commitment to the maintenance of food security in the country. The government, however, has paid them nothing in return,” said AIKS General Secretary Hannan Mollah.

Regarding the government’s boasting of rice and wheat procurement in the last two financial years, the farmers organisation said the government had to procure more grain due to low open market prices. Nonetheless, the procurement levels were much less than requirement levels and many farmers sold their produce at low prices.

“The spending for most schemes in agriculture declined in 2020-21, and shows no promise of rise in 2021-22. For instance, in the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana, the actual expenditure in 2019-20 was Rs. 2,700 crore and the budgeted expenditure for 2020-21 was Rs 4,000 crore. But the actual expenditure in 2020-21 was Rs 2,563 crore, which is lower than the actual expenditure in 2019-20,” said the AIKS in a press release.

It also condemned the claims of the central government that current Minimum Support Prices (MSP) are already 50 percent above the cost of production. Mollah said that the government considers the A2+FL cost as the cost of production and not the C2 cost as suggested by the Swaminathan Commission. Meanwhile, a majority of farmers are still outside the procurement network, and are denied access to MSPs. However, the government announced no plan on how to expand the access of farmers to procurement or MSP. In fact, its medium-term plan is to reduce procurement, which is visible through its insistence on implementing the three Farm Acts, said the AIKS.

Farmers also raised concerns about the government’s failure to pay its dues to the Food Corporation of India (FCI) over the last few years, instead forcing the FCI to borrow high-interest loans from the NSSF.

“It is welcome that the budget has announced its intent of not burdening the FCI with loans, but it has remained silent on the past dues to be paid to the FCI. Unless these dues are paid, the financial viability of the FCI will remain stressed. It also remains to be seen whether the government would meet this obligation to the FCI in 2021-22,” said the AIKS.

Moreover, the privatisation of public infrastructure such as NAFED warehouses is a part of pre-existing agreements between the FCI and Adani Logistics for building and managing silos, said farmer leaders.

Further, the Union government announced extension of the ‘Operation Greens’ scheme provides credit subsidy to promote agri-logistics to 22 perishable commodities. It is presently controlled by large agro-based companies.

However, the AIKS dismissed the budget speech’s emphasis on infrastructure development considering the actual allocations for schemes such as Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana or the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana in rural areas have been stagnant for about two years. There are no allocation revisions in this regard.

Mollah also pointed out that the Budget maintains a dead silence on land acquisition and compensation while focusing on large scale infrastructure projects through private partnerships.

“Large scale land acquisition of farm lands would be required for the highway projects announced,” he said.

Similarly, the budget also gave a raw deal to livestock farmers. The actual spending for the Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying fell from Rs. 2,706 crore in 2019-20 to Rs. 2,630 crore in 2020-21. The budgeted allocation for 2021-22 is Rs 3,057 crore, which is hardly a rise in real terms, said the AIKS.

Building this further, workers organisation Centre of Indian Trade Unions’ (CITU) General Secretary Tapan Sen said, “The lavish statement of the Minister on her government’s commitment to peoples’ well-being and livelihood does not, as usual, match with the actual allocations.”

Talking specifically about social sector and welfare related expenditures such as MNREGA, he said that the Budget drastically cut down allocation by 41 percent of what the government actually spent in 2020-21 although the rural unemployment and joblessness increased phenomenally.

In Mid-day meal, allocation was cut down by Rs 1,400 crore from what was actually spent last year. In ICDS, the allocation reduced by 30 percent compared to allocation in last year’s budget. In jobs and skill development, allocation was cut down by 35 percent compared to allocation in the last budget while Sitharaman indicated the government move to “bring down the number of Centrally Sponsored Schemes” as per the recommendation of the 15th Finance Commission.

Sen said that the Budget entirely focused on promoting “ease of doing business” for corporates and big business, both foreign and domestic, by way of easing the burden of compliance of their statutory obligations under Companies Act, and also in the matter of direct tax assessment and recovery of unpaid taxes, besides numerous exemptions on various heads.

“Promoting tax evasion by corporates with impunity has become the hallmark of the “ease of doing business policy” of the Modi Govt, which tantamount to sponsored loot of national exchequer,” said Sen.

He pointed out that while lamenting on financial crunch and low revenue generation during the pandemic period, the Finance Minister did not utter a single word about the need to recover huge accumulation of unpaid direct taxes (Corporate and Income Tax) of Rs. 10,57 lakh crore in the process of their last five year rule; of this Rs. 2.29 lakh crore tax dues are under any dispute and yet remained unrecovered. Further, during the same five-year period, the corporate tax rate was drastically slashed down for promoting better compliance.

CITU said the Budget talked about its wholesale privatization programme of mostly profit-making PSUs, while declaring closure of all loss-making PSUs, even those in core and strategic sectors like pharmaceuticals, heavy manufacturing etc.

Leaders said the entire focus is on selling the assets including land at the disposal of these PSUs, Railways, Ports etc under their programme of monetisation combined with privatisation. Even in Railways, Urban Transport, gas-pipe lines and also electricity discom sector, reforms proposed by the Govt are virtually privatization through PPP route. 

“The government appears to be in a haste in its selling spree of national assets. Rs 1.75 lakh crore is targeted to be garnered through privatization in the current fiscal,” said CITU.

Sen also alleged that the government’s “Minimum Government” programme was simply a strategy to hand over the financial sector to private hands by increasing FDI to 74 percent in the insurance sector while pushing through IPO in LIC and privatization of public sector banks after recapitalization from national exchequer. He called such measures “disastrous as well as destructive propositions.”

He also pointed out that public health infrastructure was not spared from privatisation either despite the grim experiences of the pandemic. The organisation also voiced other concerns such as the reduction in customs duty on steel semis and scrap that will severely affect the domestic steel industry, particularly the integrated steel plants, both in public and private sectors.

“In totality, the government policy continues to be destructive for the national economy as a whole. In this background the projection of 11 percent growth in 2021-22 appears to be sound bites without much substance. [Sitharaman citing] Labour Codes [to] ensure universal social security and statutory minimum wage for all is totally devoid of truth. These Codes are going to abolish all labour rights including that to even ask for social security and minimum wage and that is why the entire trade union movement has rejected forthright these Labour Codes and demanded their scrapping,” said Sen.

Overall, peasant organisations said the Budget did not provide anything for people, did nothing for addressing the severe unemployment situation, lack of direct relief to people under severe distress through income and food support.

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The post Budget 2021-22 disappointing: Farmers’ Unions appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Indeed, The Union Budget  does recognise the role of boosting up housing, transportation and consumer demand to sustain economic growth. This has been balanced by setting a target of achieving a fiscal deficit target of 3.3% of the GDP through progressive income tax measures, which include a 3% surcharge hike on an income of INR 2 crore and a 7% surcharge on an income of INR 5 crore and above.

It is expected that the housing demand would boost up by offering an increase in the deduction that can be claimed for interest paid on loans, taken for affordable housing by Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 3.5 lakh per annum for houses valued up to Rs 45 lakh.

The current government in the budget has also declared to infuse INR 70,000 crore capital for PSU banks, which can enhance the money supply within the economy and can also boost the demand and bring the economy back to recovery.

The resultant inflation is still expected to be low from these demand-injection measures within the economy. The government has shown the conviction to borrow in foreign currency and inject money into the economy to create a recovery path. The money from the banks is also expected to be invested in the infrastructure sector like Railways till 2030. An investment of INR 50 lakh crore is envisaged to be made in the Railways sector over the next two decades.

Additionally, the creation of domestic manufacturing, operational and repair industry along with national highways are going to create an impetus of new demand creation.

Schemes like Bharatmala, Sagarmala and UDAN (or Ude Desh Ka Aam Nagrik) are envisaged to minimise the rural urban divide and improve transport infrastructure. This investment push is also complemented by a disinvestment policy of the government where the government will modify the present policy of retaining 51% stake in PSUs.

An introspection
So far so good; but this new demand push in the economy is also going to create a massive incremental energy demand. So, the larger question is – “Will the country be able to meet its new energy demand from renewable energy complemented by efficient energy demand management policies and measures?”

It is over here that the budget looks a little less promising. Reduction of tax rate on electric vehicles from 12% to 5% through the GST council is expected to promote the application of electric vehicles in the transportation sector. The new building facilities, metro transition points and other infrastructure and housing facilities have been planned through the new banking loans.

But what about the supply of energy to the domestic manufacturing, repairing and operations industry? The budget could have mentioned about the role of renewable, clean energy supply to these industries and the mechanism to assure it by taking  energy conservation and demand management measures.

However, it stays silent on this issue. It is true that after the budget declaration, electric vehicles can be now majorly promoted in the proposed upcoming 17 iconic world class tourist sites with the support of the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric Vehicles or FAME-II scheme by encouraging faster adoption of electric vehicles through the right incentives and charging infrastructure.

But what about the supply of natural gas to the domestic manufacturing, repairing and operations industries in future?

The low hanging fruit
The Union Budget allocates INR 1,035 crore to the Power System Development Fund to revive gas based power units for ensuring a sustained long term supply of gas to various infrastructure and industrial sectors of the economy in order to sustain the growth path. The allocated fund will also be used as a subsidy for state-owned power distribution companies’ or DISCOMs’ purchase of electricity from stranded gas run power plants.

This is expected to revive the economy by addressing the challenge of the stranded assets which are stuck in the sector. For the economy to grow, the problem of stranded assets and NPAs (non-performing assets) of banks associated with the power sector needs to be resolved.
Currently, out of the 24,150 MW gas-based power generation capacity 14,305 MW has no supply of domestic gas, leading to almost about INR 60,000 crore of non-performing assets and decline of average plant load factor to just about 22%.

It has been envisaged to invest of around INR 40,000 crore in the remaining more than 9,000 MW power generation plants that are running at a sub-optimal level.

In 2016, a reverse auction process was initiated for power plants to avail subsidy for buying costly imported gas and regasified LNG. However, after four rounds of reverse auction between June 2015 to September 2016, the process was discontinued. Now the government has come back with the allocation of subsidy for the DISCOMs to buy power from stranded units.

In the meantime, it is also true that while the Gas Authority of India Ltd (GAIL) is sourcing the imported gas, the Gujarat State Petronet has suffered a loss of 50% of its transmission rate, apart from 75% of its marketing margin, while supplying imported regasified LNG to sustain the clean energy demand of the industry sector.

Indeed, while on the economy side, the budget comes up with clear measures, on the aspect of an interlinked, growing clean energy needs and the economy’s transition for that, the budget was silent, and has left room for more thoughts for future to address systemic issues of the Indian economy and the energy sector.

Courtesy: Counter View

The post The Union budget is silent on economy’s transition to interlinked and clean energy needs appeared first on SabrangIndia.