Ranchi: The economists in Jharkhand felt that the entire focus of the budget, which was tabled by Union minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday, shifted to the poll-bound states of West Bengal, Assam, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry and they got lion’s share of the budget allocated for infrastructural development.
“Devoid of any big infrastructure project, labourers from Jharkhand will once again be forced migrate to states where there is a probability of construction of roads and other infrastructure,” economist and former vice chancellor of Vinoba Bhave University, Dr Ramesh Sharan, said. He added, “Our state largely depends on forest produce and farming so we expected some announcement about giving support to minor forest products and employment schemes. As many as 18 crore people in the country lost jobs during the lockdown and unless some support is provided to them, the economy cannot recover.”
He, however, said that Jharkhand is going to be indirectly benefited by the Eklavya Vidyalaya scheme meant for tribal districts and also get a few model schools out of the 15,000 schools announced by the Centre to be developed with support of private players.
Echoing similar views, St Xaviers College professor Dr Harishwar Dayal said, “NREGA scheme was a saviour during the lockdown. Thousands of people got some relief because of that scheme but the finance minister did not even mention anything about rural employment support.” He added that there was an urgent need to revise the wage paid in Jharkhand as well as coverage of the scheme. He also expressed disappointment over the silence of finance minister about social security schemes. Dayal said that people were adversely impacted during the pandemic and were eagerly looking for some additional support to the social security schemes, like pensions for elderly, widows and the disabled, most of which comes under centrally sponsored schemes.
He also said that apart from Covid, the Centre should also focus on other diseases and improvement of the health infrastructure throughout the country.
He further said that have also pointed fingers to the dream of 11% GDP growth projection in the wake of the fact that the mainstay of resource mobilization is through proposed disinvestment. “Disinvesting PSUs is a contentious issue, we are not sure about the future of HEC and other PSUs operating in Jharkhand and such steps can further trigger job losses and uncertainty,” Dayal said.