Union Minister Piyush Goyal shall be presenting the Interim Budget for FY 2019-20 on Friday. The budget would be the last one for the Modi government before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections which are scheduled in May later in the year. The budget is expected to be a populist one with farmer relief package and on the cards. Besides the measures to lure the voter base ahead of the elections, the central government is believed to be working on a universal basic income (UBI) scheme for the poor ahead of the General Elections.

As a matter of fact, the Centre has been mulling some variant of UBI in lieu of the heavily contested farm loan waivers. On January 29, 2019, Rahul Gandhi promised a minimum income guarantee for all poor families should Congress come to power in 2019.

The Economic Survey of 2016-17 had first envisaged the UBI as "a conceptually appealing idea" and a possible alternative to social welfare programmes targeted at reducing poverty.

What is UBI?

UBI is a programme in which every citizen of a country, state or region is given a fixed monthly income free of cost, that is, without the expectation of repayment or enrolment from the beneficiary. The amount disbursed is deemed enough to cover a person’s basic expenses.

UBI is a fixed income which every adult, rich or poor, working or idle, gets from the government. The idea is to create a society where economic inequality does not exist, as a first priority, and the nation looks to bring all its citizens at a minimum level of income.

According to Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN), a global network of academics, students and social policy practitioners promoting and serving as a repository of published research on UBI, "A basic income is a periodic cash payment unconditionally delivered to all on an individual basis, without means-test or work requirement."