India’s Congress party proposes a separate farmer’s budget and single rate GST in its election manifesto

• The Indian National Congress, the main challenger to the incumbent BJP in the upcoming elections, released its manifesto today.
  
• As expected, the party’s pledges were heavy on social welfarism and on highlighting the current government’s weaknesses, especially with respect to jobs, farmer livelihoods and women’s empowerment.
  
• First and foremost, the Congress’s President, Rahul Gandhi, announced a separate budget for farmers.

The Indian National Congress, the main challenger to the incumbent BJP in the upcoming elections, released its manifesto today. The theme of the manifesto was the marriage of “wealth and welfare.”

As expected, the party’s pledges were heavy on social welfarism and on highlighting the current government’s weaknesses, especially with respect to jobs and farmer livelihoods.

First and foremost, the Congress’s President, Rahul Gandhi, announced a separate budget for farmers, in the vein of the erstwhile practice of presenting a separate Railways Budget, and the establishment of a national commission for farmers. In addition, if a farmer defaults on a loan, it will be categorised as a “civil offence” as opposed to a criminal one.

Gandhi also promised a single rate GST, scrapping the current system - which boasts five different indirect tax rates - and settling on one.

The main opposition party also plans to fill 2.2 million vacant government jobs by the end of the 2019-2020 financial year. It will also increase the guaranteed worker days under the government's rural jobs programme, MGNREGA, from 100 to 150. Also, in a bid to encourage entrepreneurism, startup founders won’t require government permissions for their businesses for the first three years.

The Congress’s NYAY scheme featured heavily in the manifesto. If voted into power next month, the Congress plans to give ₹6,000/month to the 20% poorest households in India - which roughly equates to 250 million individual beneficiaries or 50 million households. This is also targeted towards farmers.

The “first-of-its-kind’ basic income scheme for India’s poorest households - which is expected to cost the government ₹3.6 trillion on an annual basis - has been questioned on many accounts, most of which pertain to where the funds will come from and the identification of beneficiaries. In response to these questions, the Congress said in its manifesto that it would appoint a panel of economists and statisticians to ensure the effective testing and roll-out of the scheme.

There was also emphasis on the education sector and women's empowerment. The Congress plans to allocate 6% of India’s GDP to education spending. It also promised to pass the Women’s Reservation Bill in the first session of the 17th Lok Sabha. The bill reserves 33% of the seats in Parliament and state legislative assemblies for women.

Finally, the Congress promised electoral reform. The party said it would roll back the electoral bond scheme, which has recently been criticised for being opaque in regards to funding sources and mostly benefitting the ruling party, and establish a National Election Fund which anyone could contribute to.

Authored by a committee led by former Union Finance Minister P Chidamabaram, the manifesto was reportedly the result of a number of consultations at 60 locations around India with various stakeholder groups in the past year - from individual voters to industry bodies, giving it a “crowd-sourced” feel.


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