Reportage
Budget cuts for Dalit women, drop in allocation for SC & ST education: National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights
Dissecting the allocation for schemes for SC/ST community, NDHCR stated that the proportion of targeted schemes is 37.79% for SC and 43.8% for ST in Budget 2022-23. The rest of the allocation is for de-facto general schemes and doesn’t offer much to the SC/ST community, say Dalit rights activists.
Gaon Connection
Camels in Crisis: The ‘ship of the desert’ in Rajasthan on the verge of drowning
Expensive fodder, new state laws that strictly regulate trading in camels, and with tourism in the doldrums, the traditional camel herders in Rajasthan face a severe crisis.
Kamal Singh Sultana
30% less fund allocation for rehabilitation of manual scavengers in Budget 2022
Officially, there are slightly more than 58,000 manual scavengers in India who, despite the ban, lift human excreta. Activists working with this community say that there is a reluctance in the government to acknowledge these manual scavengers, and hence low budgetary allocations. Their rehabilitation also remains poor.
Shivani Gupta
Building fences: Women in Bareilly make wire and metal netting to protect farmlands from stray cattle, and earn a living
In Uttar Pradesh, 560,408 women self-help groups across the state’s 75 districts have helped rural women into self employment and economic independence. In Bareilly district, women associated with more than 7,000 SHGs are making barbed wire fences to masalas, growing their business and becoming self-reliant.
Ramji Mishra
Health Budget 2022 “falls flat”, share of health in total budget drops to 2.26%: Jan Swasthya Abhiyan
Public health experts have demanded an increase in the health outlay. They claim the budget has failed to allocate sufficient funds for the strengthening of the public health system, the National Health Mission programme, COVID related provisions, health services for women and children, and the mental health programme.
Gaon Connection
MGNREGA budget slashed to Rs 73,000 cr; pending liabilities of Rs 18,350 cr; programme can provide only 16 days work, say activists
Against the revised estimate of Rs 98,000 crore for MGNREGA in 2021-22, the Union Budget 2022-23 has allocated Rs 73,000 to the rural employment scheme. About Rs 18,350 crore are pending liabilities from previous years thus, leaving effective Rs 54,650 crore available for use. This is a systematic way of diluting the public works programme, complain the right to work researchers.
Sarah Khan
Reduced rainfall over central India, rising precipitation in south India – scientists blame marine heatwaves
Marine heatwaves in the western Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal are resulting in drying conditions over the central Indian subcontinent. But, there is a significant increase in the rainfall over south peninsular India due to the heatwaves in the north Bay of Bengal, finds an IITM study.
Gaon Connection
Health sector gets Rs 86,606 crore in Budget 2022; public health experts say “not enough”
The Budget Estimate 2022-23 has allocated Rs 86,606 crore to the health sector, which is a “negligible” increase as compared to the Revised Estimate of Rs 85,915 crore for FY 2021-22. Prioritisation of health is missing in this year’s budget despite the country facing the third wave of the pandemic, say public health experts.
Shivani Gupta
With an increased allocation to education, Budget 2022 focuses on e-learning, but will it bridge the digital divide?
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced that the government will launch a digital university and increase the ‘One Class One TV Channel’ from 12 to 200 TV channels, among other things to bring rural children at par with their urban counterparts. Gaon Connection spoke to education sector experts to elicit their comments and this is what they had to say
Sarah Khan
Union Budget 2022: Here’s what the budget has to offer rural India
PM-KISAN, crop insurance, drones for digitisation of land records, MGNREGA, rural drinking water scheme, accessible banking facilities, digital learning programmes in villages – here’s what rural India has got from this year’s Union Budget.