In June last year, a small-scale awareness activity and camp in two blocks of Jharkhand saw hundreds of people showing up at the block office to register their names for pensions and MGNREGA work. On submitting their applications to the block administration, they were communicated the broken refrain of “abhi funds nahin hain” (there is no money available right now).

The small anecdote highlights how budgetary allocations for social sector schemes are significant both for the seriousness with which they are implemented, and for the lives of people they manage to reach.

A few crores here and there is often a matter of survival for families that depend on social security nets in the poorest parts of the country, and indeed the world. Thus, away from the annual glitzy announcement of budgets, the actual trickle down to block offices to “quotas” and “waiting lists” has enormous bearing on the lives of people.

A closer look at the numbers

Having crossed the Rs 1 lakh-crore milestone last year, the total budget for the ministry of rural development (MRD) in 2018-19 has increased by around 4 per cent, while the increase in the overall Union Budget registered a growth of 9 per cent. Taken in context, it has reduced as a share of the total budget as well as percentage of GDP.

There are three clear trends in #Budget2018 for the MRD.

Existing schemes, such as the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) and National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM), have seen a quiet increase in budgetary allocations. The rights-based law, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), has got the same budget as the previous year.

New schemes announced over the last couple of years, such as Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana (SAGY) and Mission Antodaya, have got no budget line dedicated to them, with the intention of funds to be pooled across schemes.

The flagship programme of this government, the restructured Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana Grameen (PMAY-G), has a decline in allocation, perhaps due to poor utilisation of funds.

MGNREGA conspicuous by its absence

The MGNREGA constitutes about 50 per cent of the department of rural development and reaches one in every three families in rural India. Conspicuous by its absence in finance minister Arun Jaitley’s speech on February 1, it has been allocated the same budget of the previous year’s revised estimate of Rs 55,000 crore.

However, as pointed out in the Supreme Court in an ongoing public interest litigation, funds to the programme are falling short. This is reflected in pending liabilities at the end of every financial year, ranging up to 30 per cent of the budget allocation.

Thus, the amount actually available for employment every year is less than what the budget allocation indicates. This has an impact on wages being paid on time, and the overall interest of citizens to access work under the scheme.

Recent independent studies have shown that as the financial year progresses, wages paid on time decrease.

Awaas Yojana allocations

The revamped PMAY-G scheme, announced in March 2016, set a target of building 1 crore households by March 2019 for the homeless and those living in kutcha houses. The government has built 15.57 lakh rural houses as of December 2017, an achievement rate of 30 per cent considering that it committed to construct 51 lakh houses in FY 2017-18.

Although there was a big jump in allocation for the scheme in 2017-18 from the previous year (about 43 per cent), the budget for this year has declined by 9 per cent. This is perhaps because progress is slow in the actual construction of houses.

Social security that is not to be

According to the year-end review of the ministry of rural development for 2017-18, there was a proposal to revamp the National Social Assistance Programme to the Pradhan Mantri Samajik Suraksha Yojana (PMSSY). This did not come to bear in the budget, and the long-standing demand of citizens’ campaigns and social action groups to increase and index the pension amounts and to increase coverage was ignored.

While there is an increase of 5 per cent in the budget estimate, it is not close to being enough to cover all the elderly citizens working in the informal sector, even at the lowly rate of Rs 200 per month.

In conclusion, the budget for rural development maintains status quo across schemes. The manner of implementation and supplementary grants in the coming year will perhaps give a more conclusive picture.