#170 A Universal Solution & The Rocket Man

Yabi Lali

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India Policy Watch: Why is UBI Back Again? Insights on burning policy issues in India - Pranay Kotasthane The Universal Basic Income (UBI) proposal made it to last week's policy headlines. The occasion was the release of a report commissioned by the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister. Written by the Institute for Competitiveness, the State of Inequality in India Report <a target="_blank" href="https://competitiveness.in/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Report_on_State_of_Inequality-in_India_Web_Version.pdf">bats</a> for “raising minimum income and introducing universal basic income” to reduce “the income gap and equal distribution of earnings in the labour market”. There is no cost-benefit analysis or implementation details of the UBI in the report. Nevertheless, since this report has been commissioned by a government advisory body just a couple of years ahead of the next national election, the report has rekindled the conversation on UBI. What Do We Know About the UBI in India? UBI has been extensively discussed ever since the Economic Survey 2016-17. It is one of those rare ideas for which you will find liberal and progressive arguments both for and against it. So I’ll skip the usual arguments and get to the crux of the UBI in India. What we know is that a “Universal. Basic. Income.” is an impossible trinity in the Indian context. The government can at best meet two but not all three of its elements—a basic income that won’t be universal; a universal income that will be way below what qualifies as “basic”; or something that is universal and basic but not in the form of an income. This trilemma arises due to two reasons. One, India is just not rich enough for the government to fund a full UBI by taxing citizens at reasonable rates. The Economic Survey estimated that even a non-universal b

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