Karnataka Budget: Focus on what matters

As Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah presents the first budget by the new Congress government this week, attention is on the implementation of the “guarantees” that the party had announced in its election manifesto.

However, while the benefits being announced will be popular and election-related, the need of the hour is to focus on areas that really matter to the poor and middle class, and indeed to the State as a whole: education and healthcare. A budget that initiates and stimulates significant changes in these two sectors will be much more meaningful than one that merely seeks to balance the numbers of revenue and expenses resulting from the election promises.

Education has been one of the biggest failures of successive parties in power in Karnataka. Despite lakhs of crores of people’s tax money being pumped into this sector, even today, the pass percentage of children in the SSLC exams is not 100 per cent—this year it was 84 per cent, slightly below the previous year. Interestingly, it was even lower in urban areas, at 80 per cent.

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As per the annual ASER report, the percentage of Class 8 children who could read a Class 2 text fell from 70 per cent to 60 per cent between 2018 and 2022. In many indicators, Karnataka falls below the all-India average. This was, of course, due to the pandemic. Nevertheless, these statistics clearly show the challenge that the government has in terms of school education.

The BJP government did increase the budget for education from Rs 27,000 crore in 2019–20 to Rs 38,000 crore in 2023–24. Allocations for school infrastructure, toilets, classrooms, etc., were increased and highlighted in detail.

However, this has not translated into significant changes on the ground. Basic facilities like drinking water and toilets are still a challenge. Moreover, the workings of government schools—the quality of teaching and leadership—need to be addressed.

Government schools still tend to be shunned by parents who prefer to send their children to expensive private schools, even when they cannot afford it. For a family earning Rs 25,000 per month with two school-going children, school fees of Rs 50,000 each annually amount to more than 40 per cent of their income being spent on the education of their children.

The Congress government needs to address this with great importance and urgency.

Fortunately, there is the example of government schools in Delhi, where the transformation that has taken place in the school system since the Aam Aadmi Party came to power has become a global case study. This year, the pass percentage in Delhi government schools in the CBSE curriculum was 99 per cent. Over 1,000 of these children also passed the NEET medical entrance exam, and over 700 qualified for the JEE Mains.

Besides stepping up the allocation for education (the AAP Delhi government doubled the allocation to Education and spends nearly 25 per cent of their budget on this head), Shri Siddharamaiah and his team will need to make several other changes. Focusing on School Heads and teachers in government schools, addressing their genuine issues, fostering properly functioning SDMCs, and setting world-class standards—these and other steps will be vital. This is what will really make a difference to parents in the poor and middle classes. And, of course, to their children and to our State in the future, too!

In Healthcare, as well, the government has a major challenge before itself. There are two problems: the amount of the budget and its effectiveness. While the former BJP government increased budget allocations for health from Rs 12,000 crore in 2022–23 to Rs 15,000 crore in 2023–24, this is still woefully inadequate for Karnataka, one of the richest states in the country.

Delhi, for example, which has a population less than half the size of Karnataka, spends almost 50 per cent more on health per capita than Karnataka. States like Kerala and Tamil Nadu also have significantly higher per capita spending on public healthcare. But it is not just the budget; it is its effectiveness that matters. Much of the expenditure in Karnataka is wasted due to rampant corruption in contracts or poor planning and execution.

The recently opened Namma Clinics are a case in point. In several cases, a Namma Clinic is located close to a primary health centre, completely duplicating the cost without adding any additional benefit. As a result, the private sector healthcare industry in Karnataka thrives while the poor and middle class have to pay huge amounts for healthcare that should be coming to them free of charge.

The coming Budget is an opportunity for this new government, with their recently won massive mandate, to not just fulfil their vote-winning guarantees but bring about significant changes to the lives of people in Karnataka in areas that matter most, like Education and Healthcare.

(The writer is the secretary for AAP in Bengaluru.)