From Education to Agriculture: Here are Modi govt's top policies which changed 2020

With Coronavirus (COVID-19) being the biggest challenge for governments all around the world, the Indian government passed major reforms along with handling the pandemic this year. India- which implemented the strictest lockdown in March - saw its economy shrink to -23.9% in the first quarter of 2020-21, necessitating the need for major reforms. In a bid kickstart the economy, the Modi government several key policies this year like - Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan, the three Farm Laws, the three labour codes, Banking Regulation (Amendment). The government also unveiled the long-awaited National Education Policy 2020, Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Amendment.

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Here are key policies of the Modi govt in 2020:

Aatmanirbhar Abhiyan Scheme

Hit hard by the COVID-19 lockdown, the Modi government unveiled its 'Aatmanirbhar Bharat' scheme - in the form of five economic tranches - amounting to 20 lakh crores. 

• The first tranche dealt with credit to MSMEs, NBFCs, EPF support, liquidity infusion into various sectors and extending filing Income Tax return for Fiscal Year 2019-20 upto December 2020. 
• As a part of the second tranche, nine main measures to aid migrant workers, street vendors, small farmers, self-employed people were announced under the government's MUDRA, MNREGA schemes.
• Under the third tranche, the government announced 11 measures - of which 8 of them focused on strengthening infrastructure, capacities and building better logistics in Agriculture, Fisheries and animal husbandry, while the rest 3 pertained to governance and administrative reforms - i.e the Farm Laws.
• The fourth tranche of its economic package made structural reforms in eight sectors namely - Coal, defence production, minerals, civil aviation (Airports, Airspace Mgmt & MRO), power distribution in UTs, Space and atomic energy opening up these sectors to privatisation, corporatisation.
• The last tranche announced 7 steps namely for MNREGA, health and education, for states, and for easing of business, infusing more capital into the existing government schemes.

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The three farm Bills

As the country opened up after lockdown, the Centre promulgated three ordinances - Essential Commodities (Amendment) Ordinance, 2020 & The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm services ordinance, 2020. The amendment to the Essential Commodities act was to enable better price realisation for farmers by attracting investments - making agriculture sector competitive.  Agriculture foodstuff including cereals, edible oils, oilseeds, pulses, onions and potato are to be deregulated while stock limits were to be imposed only under extreme conditions. Under the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm services ordinance, 2020, it provided a framework for the protection and empowerment of farmers with reference to the sale and purchase of farm products overriding all state APMC laws. 

Inspite of five rounds of talks with the Centre, farmers from Haryana, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh are currently camped outside Delhi, demanding a repeal of these laws.

These are all 5 tranches and 50 measures of India's 'Aatmanirbhar Bharat' economic package

Three Labour codes

Three of the four labour code bills, that comprise the government's labour reforms - condensing the existing 44 labour codes were passed by both Houses, amid Opposition boycott. The Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020 deals with setting guidelines for those working in factories, mines and docks and are not universal in nature, leading to unions' boycotting it. Meanwhile, the Industrial Relations Code 2020 allows companies with up to 300 workers to lay off people without the state government's approval and no industrial worker is allowed to go on strike without a 60-day notice. The Code on Social Security, 2020 extends social security funds to workers for app-based firms like Uber, Ola, Swiggy and Zomato apart from the existing labourers. 

National Education Policy 2020

In July, as the Indian economy began to recover, the Modi cabinet approved the National Education policy 2020 - after previous policies in 1968, and 1986, which was later amended in 1992.  After six years of deliberation, NEP 2020, the Union Human Resource Development Ministry was renamed to the Ministry of Education. 

• School-level reforms

Reforming school education, Right to education (RTE) act has been extended in a new 5+3+3+4 formula instead of the current 10+2 model. Proposing coding lessons, vocational training for students from Class 6 onwards, Gender Inclusion Fund for girl child development, the policy also recommends medium of instruction to be the regional language at least till Class 5 and preferably till Class 8. Moreover, National Testing Agency will offer a common entrance exam to all higher educational institutions and Transparent online self-disclosure shall be encouraged. The Gross Enrolment Ratio from the pre-school to secondary level should be 100% by 2030, aims the Centre.

• Higher education reforms

In the Higher education sector, the government recommended multiple entry/exit points to be allowed - UG program : 3 to 4 years, PG Program - 1 to 2 years, Integrated 5 years bachelors/ masters program and M Phil to be discontinued. Regulating the fee structure under a broad regulatory framework, the policy recommends a single regulator for all higher education working under a self-disclosure based transparent system for approvals in place of numerous 'inspections'. Pushing for Public investment in the education sector to reach 6% of GFP at the earliest, the policy recommended evolving Standalone Higher Education Institutes and professional education institutes into multi-disciplinary education with a National Educational Technology Forum (NETF) to be created - merging Arts, Science and Commerce branches.

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Banking Regulation (Amendment) Bill, 2020

The Banking Regulation Ordinance introduced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman aims in getting all co-operative banks under the purview of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The ordinance which has been promulgated on June 26, 2020, aims at tackling the misappropriation of funds amid the PMC Bank scam, PNB Bank scam etc. The Ordinance also excludes primary agricultural credit societies, cooperative societies involved in long term financing for agricultural development from the Act.

Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2020 (FCRA)

The Bill which was introduced by Finance Minister (MoS) Nityanand Rai amends the Act regulating the acceptance and utilisation of foreign contribution by individuals, associations, and companies. Tightening the regulations previously amended by the UPA government in 2010, the Modi government has prohibited public servants too from accepting foreign donations. This Bill also prohibits the transfer of foreign contribution to any other person, mandates Aadhaar registration, reduces foreign contribution for administrative purposes to 20% and allows suspension of registration upto 360 days.