Presently, with almost everything available at their doorstep in the name welfare schemes, the working class is kicking its habit of working to earn money for at least two square meals a day.
What is happening in the debt-ridden state of Andhra Pradesh is a game of one-upmanship among principal political players engaged in handing out freebies to voters. With elections fast-approaching, these parties have set a single-point programme of wooing voters with competitively attractive offers to be able to rule the state, regardless of the deteriorating fiscal health of the state. The state is already neck deep in financial problems due to the implementation of a plethora of welfare schemes. Yet, the two main political parties in Andhra Pradesh are competing to hoodwink people in the name of bringing welfare schemes for people, though the beneficiaries of government’s programmes comprise mostly the working class.
Telugu Desam Party (TDP) founder NT Rama Rao brought a novel scheme of giving one kilogram of rice for two rupees to poor people in 1983. NTR’s predecessor and Congress chief minister Kotla Vijayabhaskara Reddy was constrained to take a step in this regard after observing the tremendous response from people when NTR mentioned this scheme at public meetings during his 35,000-km yatra on his ‘Chaitanya Ratham’. Everybody, cutting across party lines, welcomed the proposal to distribute subsidised rice through nearly 37,800 fair price shops (then) across the state.
Sensing the political fallout of the public response to the subsidised rice scheme proposal of NTR, Vijaya Bhaskara Reddy introduced the same at Rs.1.90 in the state, thinking that it would take the wind out of the sails of NTR. But NTR reacted positively to the then government ‘s move and expressed his confidence that TDP would end the 35-year rule of the Congress and thereafter effectively implement the subsidised rice scheme for the poor. NTR stormed to power, emerging as the first non-Congress chief minister of AP. NTR came to be identified with the popular scheme so much so that the credit went to him, though the Congress government continued the scheme during its rule in the later years.
Supplying subsidised rice to people in need is understandable. But introducing less productive schemes requiring huge outgo is questionable, especially if they are going to impair the state’s fiscal health. Scholarships have been paid to students in schools and colleges annually since the regime of the first chief minister of combined Andhra Pradesh Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy. Yesteryear chief ministers did not insist on linking their names with those schemes for sheer publicity. These days chief ministers inscribe their names as prefixes to every welfare scheme. The term ‘Chandranna’ could be found in almost every scheme implemented in the state during the rule of TDP president N. Chandrababu Naidu. Now, the term has made way for ‘Jagananna’, reflecting the name of YSRCP president YS Jaganmohan Reddy.
Presently, with almost everything available at their doorstep in the name welfare schemes, the working class is kicking its habit of working to earn money for at least two square meals a day. Hence, there is avoidable scarcity of farm labour in rural areas across the state. Even small and marginal farmers are being forced to engage farm equipment and machinery at various stages of cultivation. Some farmers have started engaging groups of farm labourers from distant places like West Bengal and Bihar. In these circumstances, it is irresponsible on the part of major political parties to continue to promise welfare schemes, ignoring the looming fiscal disaster.
Residual AP started its journey with a deficit of Rs. 16,000 crore in the annual budget. So, the state ought to have adopted a careful approach towards financial management. Instead, the successive rulers made visits to World Economic Forum summits at huge costs to the exchequer – at least Rs. 15 crore each – but returned almost empty-handed. Nobody knows whether any industrial unit of signficance has been grounded in the state following MoUs signed at the WEF summits.
The YSRCP government has spent Rs. 2.10 crore on welfare schemes, using mostly borrowed funds. The AP government gets loans at huge interest rates. Such loans are not supposed to exceed 30% of its annual income. Yet, AP has willingly crossed this limit. Amidst this fiscal indiscipline, the state government has no qualms telling people that Rs. 2.10 crore had been distributed among lakhs of beneficiaries, suggesting that the borrowings were made only for them!
The TDP, at its recent Mahanadu in Rajahmundry, brought out its manifesto full of freebies with a view to return to power. The promised schemes have striking similarities with those launched by YSRCP: offers of paying Rs.15,000 to every schoolgoing child in the family, monthly cash allowance of Rs. 1,500 to women; and unemployment allowance of Rs. 3,000 to youth, among others.
As they say, “a statesman thinks about the next generation, while a politician thinks only about the next election”. Going by the skewed approaches of YSRCP and TDP, where would the state go with its mounting debts tomorrow? What path is left for the person who would be ruling the state tomorrow? As things stand, the financial position of AP is so bad that the government can’t easily pay salaries to its employees on the first of every month. There is nearly Rs.2 lakh debt burden on the head of every citizen in the state.
It is high time major political parties in the state understood the implications of going to voters with freebies and welfare schemes just to be in power with least regard for fiscal discipline.
