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West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee mentioned the Universal Basic Income for every family in her released Party manifesto for the 2021 Assembly election.
About
- Under the income scheme, all the 1.6 crore families under the general category will get ?500 a month and the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes population ?1,000 a month.
- The direct transfers will be in the name of the women head of the family.
What is Universal Basic Income (UBI)?
- A basic income is an income unconditionally granted to all citizens on an individual basis, without means test or work requirement.
- It is a form of minimum income guarantee that is being paid irrespective of any income from other sources.
- Components: It have three components:
- Universality: UBI for all
- Unconditionality: UBI without any conditions.
- Agency: UBI can make a citizen move away from being a subject of government welfare programmes to agents of its own change.
Significance
- It will guarantee to each individual a minimum income for a dignified life with access to basic goods.
- The payments could help stabilize the economy during recessionary periods.
- It will promote social justice by reducing poverty.
- Increase the purchasing power of every poor which will further increase aggregate demand.
- Easy to implement because no identification of the beneficiary is involved.
- Reduce the wastage of government money because its implementation is very simple.
Supporters of the UBI programme
- The 2016-17 Economic Survey and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had proposed UBI as an effective means of alleviating poverty and hunger.
- Other Supporters of the UBI programme include Economics Nobel Laureates Peter Diamond and Christopher Pissarides, and tech leaders Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk.
- Countries across the world, including Kenya, Brazil, Finland, and Switzerland have begun controlled UBI projects to supplement their population.
Challenges of UBI
- Disincentivization to the work and the work productivity may decrease.
- It can cause more social problems like more alcohol consumption, tobacco consumption etc.
- Inflation could be triggered because of the increase in demand for goods and services.
Suggestions
- UBI should be made universal first across easily identifiable vulnerable groups like widows, old, pregnant women etc.
Source: TH
