'Reduced education budget shows call for Atmanirbhar Bharat a joke'

New Delhi: While slamming the Union Budget 2021-22 Delhi's Finance Minister Manish Sisodia said that the Budget completely bypasses the education and health sectors, and spells only doom for the poor, middle class and

farmers.

He said that the budget lacks a plan for increasing expenditure on welfare schemes that directly target the poor or increasing allocation towards health and education sectors which is the true foundation of the "Atmanirbhar Bharat".

Sisodia who is also the Education Minister said that since the educational institutes were shut for an entire year it has led to a serious setback in the learning of students which should have been compensated with additional allocation. "What we see is a reduction in the Ministry of Education budget by 6% (Rs 6,000 cr) — from Rs 99,312 cr in BE 2020-21 to Rs 93,224 Cr in BE 2021-22," he said.

He highlighted that the NEP 2020 had promised an allocation of 6 per cent of GDP to Education, the Union Budget has allocated only 0.6 per cent of the GDP to education. "Reducing spend on Education by Rs 6,000 cr shows that the call for "Atmanirbhar Bharat" was a mere joke," he

added.

He said that since 2020 witnessed a pandemic which exposed the crumbling public healthcare system of the country people expected the Central Government to substantially increase the healthcare allocation. He said that the Union Budget has reduced the healthcare budget by 10 per

cent.

"A careful analysis shows that the Ministry of Health budget has reduced by 10% (almost Rs 8000 cr) from RE of 2020-21 to BE of 2021-22 — from Rs 82,445 cr to Rs 74,602 cr," he said. He also said that the Union Finance Minister's announcement of a 137 per cent increase in budget for "Healthcare and Wellbeing" is misleading and an attempt to hide the reality — that the Central government doesn't care for the health of the people. "It clubs non-health schemes like the clean air programme, water supply programme to show an overall increase in Health expenditure," he

explained.

Sisodia also said that there has been an unprecedented rise in the prices of petrol and diesel which also results in high food inflation.

He said that there is absolutely nothing in this budget for the poor, the unemployed and farmers.

"Outlays of several major schemes for the poor and unemployed have been reduced — NREGA reduced by Rs 38,000 cr, Social welfare schemes reduced by

Rs 5,000 cr and even PM Kisan scheme allocation is reduced by Rs 10,000 cr," he said