If India’s wild animals were to watch the Budget speech, and review it, how many stars do you think they would give it? Perhaps one, or none!
What’s in it for the wildlife? Startlingly little. Between demonetization, the Goods and Services Tax and income tax, Arun Jaitley’s budget has no mention of protecting wildlife, conserving India’s environmental resources or making budgetary allocations that can meet India’s environmental obligations. Conservation comes under the concurrent list, so it’s handled by both Central and State governments. Alongside this, autonomous centres of excellence rely on trickle-down funding from the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) – not to mention the Environment ministry’s own commitments to Project Tiger (which lost 20 crores in this year’s budget).
Expenditure reports, however, tell a slightly positive story – the MoEF received a 15% increase in funds from 2016. It’s a change for a ministry whose budget Jaitley slashed by a quarter in 2015 – then prompting the MoEF to turn to the corporate world to protect India’s endangered wildlife.
This year lacked big bang reforms for the environment, but the work of previous budgets is visible in expenditure figures. India is among the few countries on earth to levy a tax on coal produced, starting at Rs. 50 per tonne of coal in 2010, raised later to Rs.100 in 2015, 200 and then again to 400 in 2016. The proceeds went to the National Clean Energy Fund (NCEF), later renamed to the Clean Environment Cess.
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