Tuesday: 18 Feb 2012:
A first program was conducted on ‘Economic Literacy Platform’, which is a joint venture by Arthapurna Publications and Arthakranti Pratishthan. The program was a discussion session on the subject of ‘Understanding budget and it’s impacts on living for common man’. From the point of view of economic literacy, this session was felt important because of all round impacts that budget has on our living. Considering the fact that this year’s union budget is to be presented in Parliament on 16th Mar, the session was arranged in advance for people to get enough time post session for their own groundwork.
The session began with a group exercise of ‘preparing 1 month family budget’ and then moved on to discuss what budget means, what policies are involved in budget preparation, the process for budget preparation at Central Government, the commonality and the differences between family and union budget, the best possible budget formulation. Then taking an view at actual budget document, different terms involved in the document were discussed. With that introduction about how to read budget documents, different trends of few important economic parameters were discussed. Trends threw light on where we are heading and how budget impact the direction.
On this background, different painful factors and mysterious questions of our living were attempted to be mapped. Then equally important information about how we can participate in budgeting process was shared and the session was concluded by sharing information about some organizations, which facilitate and promote budgetary participation. Overall the session was appreciated by the attendees.
Sessions on various such subjects, impacting living for common man, will be arranged on ‘Economic Literacy Platform’. Your feedback, suggestions and even sharing on this platform is very welcome. One does not need to be an expert, to contribute for economic literacy. Let’s get together to enhance economic literacy for ourselves as well as for others and keep moving on the path of ‘Arthapurna’ living!
Author:
Bhushan Patil, Amol Phalke, Janhavi Phalke,
Pune.
