Congress’ big pre-Lok Sabha election promise: ‘Minimum Income Guarantee’ for every poor person

Raipur: In what could be a ‘game changer’ for the Congress party ahead of the Lok Sabha elections 2019, Rahul Gandhi on Monday announced a ‘minimum income guarantee’ scheme which would be launched if the party comes to power after the April-May national polls. Addressing a farmers’ rally in Chhattisgarh’s Naya Raipur, Congress president Rahul Gandhi said the scheme would cover every poor person in the country.

Rahul said the scheme was aimed at eradicating poverty and hunger from the country and was part of the Congress’ vision. “We cannot build a new India while millions of our brothers and sisters suffer the scourge of poverty. If voted to power in 2019, the Congress is committed to a minimum income guarantee for every poor person, to help eradicate poverty and hunger. This is our vision and our promise,” he said at the rally. The Congress chief claimed it would be for the first time in the world that such a scheme would be launched by any government in the world.

Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram, who had served as finance minister under Dr Manmohan Singh’s government, said the “historic” scheme would bring a turning point in the lives of the poor people. Chidambaram said the Congress would release the details of the scheme in its manifesto for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. “The principle of Universal Basic Income (UBI) has been discussed extensively in the last two years. The time has come to adapt the principle to our situation and our needs and implement the same for the poor. We will explain our plan in the Congress manifesto,” he said.

It is not the first time that such a scheme has been mooted in the country. The UBI was tested as part of twin studies in Madhya Pradesh and Delhi between 2011 and 2012. As part of the experiment, Rs 1,000 were given to 100 randomly-selected households every month. The money was transferred directly into the bank account of the female head of the participating household.

In fact, in 2017, the then Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian gave a fillip to the idea by mentioning it in the Economic Survey. The 2017 Economic Survey carried a 40-page segment on UBI and mentioned three components of the scheme — universality, unconditionality and agency. In a co-incidence, a report was released on Monday co-authored by Subramanian, which mooted an annual quasi-universal basic rural income (QUBRI) of Rs 18,000 to be given to each rural household to tackle the agrarian crisis. The programme seeks to exclude “demonstrably well-off” and would cost the exchequer Rs 2.64 lakh crore if implemented.

The Congress promise announcement came amid growing speculation that in the interim Budget 2019 to be presented on February 1, the Narendra Modi government could announce direct benefit transfers to tackle the agrarian distress. The DBT scheme is expected to include cash transfers as well as interest-free crop loans. The NDA government is in favour of going the DBT way than announcing a broad loan waiver for the farmers.
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