By
Prof. Shekhar Chaudhuri, Director Calcutta Business School (former Director IIMCalcutta)
The Finance Minister
has been able to achieve a difficult balance between growth-oriented
expenditure and fiscal prudence. The thrust on infrastructure development
expenditure is expected to fuel growth. Lowering tax rate to 25 % for SMEs
would also help business growth. The stock market has given thumbs up to the
budget proposals by the Sensex increasing by 486 points.
The Agricultural and
Rural Development sector has also been given a thrust. With the proposed plan
to harness digital technology a larger part of rural India would be brought
into the formal economy.
A very important point
that needs to be noted is that for the first time there is an attempt in the
budget document to make the government accountable for the promises it has
made. The document gives detailed targets for all the ministries and
departments. An example is the allocation of Rs. 9000.00 crores for the PM
Fasal Bima Yojana which states that the target is to provide insurance cover to
40% of gross cropped area which would minimize risk by 60%.
Another significant
aspect of the budget is the proposal that legislative reforms would be
undertaken to simplify, rationalize, and merge the existing labour
laws into 4 codes. This is going to help in reducing the perceived
barriers to doing business as mentioned by foreign investors.
The FM presented some
interesting and potentially useful proposals in the area of education:
1. Introduction of a
system of measuring annual learning outcomes in schools and an emphasis on
science education and flexibility in curriculum to promote creativity which is
woefully lacking in our highly bureaucratic educational system. There are many
reports on school education that show the abysmally low levels of learning
outcomes in our schools in arithmetic and language ability. These lacunae get
translated into un-employability of our youth when they are old enough to look
for jobs in the organized sector.
2. Creation of an
Innovation Fund for Secondary Education to encourage local innovations to
ensure universal access, gender parity, and quality improvement.
3. Proposal to
undertake reforms in the UGC to encourage greater administrative and academic
autonomy based on outcome based accreditation and ranking. This is in line with
the recommendations made by the Group of Secretaries who had suggested that the
top universities in the country be unshackled from the UGC's stringent regulations
to give full expression to their ambitious dreams. It is hoped that autonomy
based on accreditation and ranking and funding linked to performance would
enable the dream of our country to be in the forefront of research and teaching
at the world level.
4. Creation of a
National Testing Agency as an autonomous and self-sustained testing
organization to conduct all entrance examinations for higher education
institutions that would free the CBSE and AICTE of conducting routine
examinations and enable them to concentrate on academics.
5. Launch of the next
phase of STRIVE (Skill Strengthening for Industrial Value Enhancement) at a
cost of Rs. 2,200.00 crores. Its very important for the country to lay stress
on high quality vocational education that would enable the vast majority of our
youth who do not have interest in academics per se or are unable to pursue the
same due to a variety of reasons to get gainful employment opportunities. I
would; however, recommend that the education system in our country should be so
designed that people who are left out of higher education at the time of
leaving school can re-enter higher education when they develop the interest or
are able to finance their higher education.
About
Author
Prof. Shekhar Chaudhuri,
Director, Calcutta Business School is a respected name in the Indian B School
circles. Dr. Chaudhuri served as the director in IIM Calcutta for two
consecutive terms where he was responsible for launching new academic programs
and significant thrust in research activities, accreditations many academic
initiatives.
