The SFI CEC successfully organized an All India Convention on Education in JNU on February 21-22. In the run up to this a rally was held in Delhi University which was followed by a public meeting at Vivekananda statue, Arts Faculty. The rally started from Vishwavidyalaya metro Station at 11am with SFI delegates from all over the country participating in it and culminated in a public meeting addressed by former all India general secretary of SFI and Former M.P. ComradeNilotpal Basu ,All India General Secretary of SFI Comrade Ritabrata Bannerjee, All India Joint Secretary Comrade Shivadasan and Delhi State President Comrade Roshan. Comrade G. Selva presided over the meeting.

sfi statement on budget

2010 February 26: The Union Budget 2010 comes in  a context when entire country is reeling under the impact of a massive price rise and has witnessed a negative growth rate in the agricutlure sector. Urgent steps should have been taken to curb price rise and provide relief to the common people. The budget presented by the government completely betrays these concerns.

The budget also shows the insensitive attitude of the government towards addressing the problems in the education sector. The education sector in India is marked by a dearth of funds with more than 90% of our population in the relevant age group not having access to education. The promised spending of  6% of GDP has been conviniently ignored by the UPA this year as well. There is only a small increase of Rs 5000 crores for primary education sector in the country. This is way below the required amont to fulfill the promises made in the Right to Education Act. MHRD’s own estimates have put the required spending for Right to Education in the Eleventh Plan at Rs 1.73 lakh crores. This gives an annual requirement of Rs 34,600 crores per year as oposed to the total Rs 22000 crores announced in the budget. As far as higher education is concerned the Revised Estimates for 2009-10 suggest that the allocation to higher education sector was only Rs 14389 crores in place of the original allocation of Rs 15429 crores made in the 2009-10 budget. This shows the deceitful role of the government in spending more money on the higher education sector. Also this year there has been a meagre increase of only Rs 1461 crores compared to the 2009-10 budget. This exposes the empty rhetoric in the tall claims being made by the HRD minister to expand the number of universities and other higher educational institutions in the country. To put it simply this budget has completely failed the expectations and needs of the student community in the country.

While the government has not announced any concrete steps to control price rise especially that of essential commodities (the President’s address terming it as inevitable), the budget proposals plan to make it even worse for the common people. There is a direct attempt to drive inflation even higher by proposing a hike in the prices of petrol and diesel by announcing a 5% increase in customs duty on crude petroleum along with a Re. 1 per litre increase in central excise duty on petrol and diesel. This will amount to an increase of Rs 2.50 per liter in petrol and diesel prices.