Building a new

A Union budget reflects one year’s priorities and spending. But there are longer-term trends to the 2011 Budget statement too,that need to be flagged. There are definite indications of the way in which India is changing and developing as a country and as a polity. Consider this: the allocation for education has been increased by 24 per cent. Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan,of course,is to be expanded. with 40 per cent more. Yes,there are problems with the mechanism of the Right to Education,but there is a larger point to be seen here,too. A point that becomes plainer when we look at the health sector: Plan allocations for health have gone up by 20 per cent,with a corresponding jump in non-plan expenditure,too.

Is India is becoming the sort of country it hoped it could become? According to the ministry of finance,the allocation for the social sector in this budget is Rs 1,60,887 crore. As a bit of perspective,the defence budget is Rs 1,64,415 crore. (Almost Rs 70,000 crore is capital expenditure,and even if a large proportion of that is committed liabilities,that still leaves wiggle room for expenditure.) Defence is not up in real terms,since it has increased by 11 per cent,not that much below the sum of inflation and real growth — and,in any case,what was holding back defence was not the allocation but an unwillingness to buy.

There is little doubt that a changing,growing,maturing India is reflected in these numbers. Perhaps even an expanding conception of where the country stands in the world and what it owes to itself. In a very real sense,the entire trajectory of India’s development has shifted. Of course,the delivery mechanism is a work in progress. But the larger point,that India is becoming the kind of country that takes on the concerns about its own people that major countries should,is worth flagging.