As the campaign for the Delhi assembly election peaks, in this season of sesame-jaggery-sugar (revdi) sweets, competing political parties are announcing freebies after freebies.
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)’s poster boy Arvind Kejriwal is taking this fight to another level claiming that if Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power the freebies already in the market would be withdrawn.
His claim has been countered by no less a person than the Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself. On behalf of the BJP, he has given a guarantee that not only would the existing jaggery-sugary schemes continue but if his party was voted to power he would value add to these schemes making them more creamy with the icing. The Congress discourse, too, is similar to that of the leading parties.
Let this writer be not declared anti-poor, let me explain how the freebies are different from the public welfare schemes.In a Reserve Bank of India report in 2022, freebies have been defined as “a public welfare measure that is provided free of charge”. The report further stated that the freebies were different from public/merit goods such as health and education, expenditure on which has wider and for long-term benefits.
The difference between freebies and welfare schemes is not always clear, but a general way to distinguish them is by their long-term impact on beneficiaries and society. Welfare schemes have a positive impact, while freebies can create dependency or distortions.
The RBI report says, “Freebies are goods and services given free without any charge to the users. They are generally aimed at benefiting the targeted population in the short term.” The policy makers often see them as a way of luring voters or bribing them with populist promises.Welfare schemes, on the other hand, are well thought-after plans that aim to benefit the target population and improve their standard of living and access to resources.
One wonders why nobody is talking about clean airs in winters and potholes-free roads during the rainy season. More importantly, why nobody is asking questions about the same?
To supposedly allay the misery of citizens, who were made to wade through slush in the knee-deep potholes of Delhi roads day after during the rainy months, the AAP government had come up with what they thought was a great idea.
They had said they would involve Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to track waterlogging in the city. Should the question be not asked now if any letter was written to the space agency or was it just a hollow announcement to deflate anger on the account of flooding?
The government had also announced plans to start quantity survey of silts in the drains from October 15 last year, after the monsoon winds have withdrawn from the city. Has anybody cared to ask the government what happened to the report or did the survey at all take place.
Freebies can distort the expenditure priorities and allocation of resources, by diverting funds from more productive and essential sectors such as infrastructure, roads, sewers, hospitals and such similar projects in the case of Delhi. This phenomenon was been best explained by former Member of Parliament and Congress candidate from the New Delhi assembly seat, Sandeep Dikshit.
In an interview to TNIE, Dikshit said, “Freebies have led to Delhi’s first revenue deficit in years, forcing the government to seek an Rs 10,000 crore loan from the Centre. Once Arvind Kejriwal started the trend in 2013, every political party jumped onto the bandwagon of comparative populism. However, these practices are unsustainable in the long run and will eventually lead to financial ruin.”
But for now there are not many takers for sane observations, like the one made by Dikshit. Even his party has announced a flurry freebie schemes. The question is, in the event of a party other than AAP coming to power, would it be able to maintain a balance between welfare and development?
AAP anyways in the past 10 years has shown that it cared two hoots for real-time development and the concept was limited only to publicity campaigns.
Sidharth Mishra
Author and president, Centre for Reforms, Development & Justice
