Social justice now an effective government mode, says Nirmala Sitharaman

New Delhi: Social justice is now an effective government model, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on the day she unveiled the interim Budget. “For us, there are now four new ‘castes’ for the government – the poor, women, youth and farmers,” Sitharaman told reporters during an interaction after the Budget.

The four castes that Sitharaman said were envisioned by PM Modi, is a reiteration of what the prime minister said on December 3 last year at the party headquarters, spelling out the BJP’s counter to the Opposition’s demand for a caste census ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

“I kept saying that for me, four castes are important – nari shakti (women empowerment), yuva shakti (youth empowerment), kisaan(farmers) and gareeb parivaar (poor families). There were many efforts to divide the country based on castes,” Modi had then said to party workers.

With the government’s positioning of this new caste system on one hand, the allocation for marginalised communities saw only marginal hikes — of 4 per cent in its allocation across all schemes for Scheduled Castes and 1per cent in its allocation for Scheduled Tribes.

Its allocation this year for the Scheduled Castes rose marginally from ₹1,59,147.79 crores in 2023-24 to ₹1,65,597.70 crores in 2024-25, a hike of 4 per cent. The revised estimates stood at ₹1,46,861.08 crores.

Significant among these is the allocation for Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-Kisan) of ₹10,177 crores this year which saw a slight fall from the ₹10,185 crores that was set aside in 2023-24. Another scheme with a significant allocation is the Jal Jeevan Scheme which was allocated ₹15,435 crores, a nominal hike from ₹15,400 crores earmarked for it in 2023-24. The allocation for MGNREGA scheme – which is ₹13,250 crores this year – is an increase from the previous year when ₹10,500 crores was set aside for it.

For the Scheduled Tribes, the government set aside ₹1,21,022.85 crores across its various schemes, which is a marginal hike of 1per cent from the previous year when ₹1,19,795.67 crores were set aside.

Allocation of ₹16,300 crores for the works under the Roads Wing in the ministry of road, transport and highways contributed to a significant part of the allocation for STs. However, the allocation this year shows a decline of 30% from 2023-24 when ₹23,375 crores were set aside for the scheme.

The allocation for MGNREGA went up from ₹7,350 crores last year to ₹10,355 crores this year, a jump of 40 per cent. Revised estimates in 2023-24, however, stood at ₹10,355 crores.