Bengaluru: The Siddaramaiah-led Congress government in Karnataka has proposed to draft a new education policy to counter the National Education Policy (NEP) of the central government led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
“The National Education Policy implemented by the central government is incompatible with the federal system of governance. It has several anomalies which undermine the constitution and democracy. (The) Uniform Education System does not suit a nation like India which has diverse religions, languages and cultures. A new education policy will be formulated…,” said Siddaramaiah, who also holds the finance portfolio, presenting his 14th budget in Bengaluru Friday.
The B.S. Yediyurappa-led BJP government in Karnataka had pushed to become the first state in the country to implement the NEP 2020.
The Siddaramaiah government has maintained that it will “undo all the wrongs by the previous government”, especially in the field of education.
“The previous government had introduced certain concepts in the text books which were antithetical to these value systems. Measures will be taken in the current year to drop such content from the textbooks,” Siddaramaiah said Friday in his Budget speech.
The two national parties have sparred over school education as one accused the other of “distorting history” to push forward their respective agendas.
Siddaramaiah said he was forced to present a revenue deficit budget due to the fiscal indiscipline of the previous BJP government and their central leadership-led administration in Delhi.
In his budget, Siddaramaiah also announced insurance cover of Rs 4 lakh for gig workers.
Meanwhile, former CM and BJP leader Basavaraj Bommai slammed the budget and termed the Congress government as “anti-people” and said that his government had “presented a savings budget”.
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Benefits for gig workers
In order to provide social security to the “gig workers” in the unorganised sector, i.e., employed as full-time/part-time delivery personnel in e-commerce companies like Swiggy, Zomato, Amazon, etc., insurance facility of total Rs 4 lakh will be provided — which will include life insurance of Rs 2 lakh and accidental insurance of Rs 2 lakh.
“The entire insurance premium will be borne by the government,” Siddaramaiah said.
Notably, senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had met with gig workers during his Bharat Jodo Yatra and even assured to include them in the larger welfare programmes of its party-run government.
The gig workers association has welcomed the move by the Karnataka government but chided e-commerce companies for their lack of concern.
Shaik Salauddin, the founder, state president and national general secretary of the Indian Federation Of App-Based Transport Workers (IFAT), told ThePrint: “Why can’t compensation laws be made applicable to this workforce whose everyday work is prone to high risks of accidents.”
“The mere technicality of not being an ‘employee’ shouldn’t have to stop the spirit of the law from being enforced. And this insurance amount announced in the budget is lesser than the amount that worker’s families could claim from these companies (Rs 4 or 5 lakh) in the case of fatal accidents.”
He added that these companies will see the budget announcement as an opportunity to stop insuring workers, which must be part of their motor vehicles guidelines.
Deputy downplays speculations of rift
At the customary post-budget press conference, the CM was flanked only by finance department officials and two Congress legislators. With deputy CM D.K. Shivakumar also not by his side, there were speculations that all was not well between the two leaders.
The CM has slashed allocations to several departments — two prominent ones were Water resources and Bengaluru development, held by Shivakumar.
For water resources, Siddaramaiah said that the previous government’s “indiscriminate actions” had made it “impossible to take up new projects”.
For Bengaluru development, he said that the previous government had left a huge liability of Rs 45,000 crore worth of incomplete works and pending payments in 2022-23, which would take at least “six to eight years to come out of this liability”.
However, Shivakumar downplayed the reduction in allocation.
“We had spoken earlier about the budget. We know how to mobilise resources,” he told reporters.
(Edited by Anumeha Saxena)
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