The Siddaramaiah government has taken the initial steps towards walking the talk by spelling out the details on the rollout of Congress’ five guarantees given to people in the run-up to the May 10 elections. Smooth implementation of those assurances and mobilisation of resources to keep the state on the development path will be the next big challenge for the CM.
Administrative machinery has to focus its entire energy on effective implementation. Any shortcomings in issuing necessary documents, processing applications, identifying the right beneficiaries, and ensuring that the assistance reaches them in time, can derail the efforts.
While implementation of the guarantees may become a yardstick to measure its performance, the government has to strike a balance between the guarantees, welfare programmes and development.
Practical realities of implementation seem to have compelled the government to appropriately alter the guarantees that were framed to woo the voters. Criticism from the opposition aside, the government needs to explain the reasons for tweaking as people were expecting them to be implemented in toto after Congress got a massive mandate by winning 135 out of 224 assembly seats.
In its election manifesto, Congress promised 200 units of free power to every household under “Gruha Jyothi”. Now, it has been altered a bit to make it “up to 200 units,” with conditions. An average of 12 months of power consumption will be taken and up to 10% more on that would be free. Now, the beneficiaries have to stick to that average and any additional consumption above that 10% will have to be paid for even if it is well below 200 units of power consumed.
While the condition may have been imposed to avoid misuse of power, the authorities have to take people into confidence before it is rolled out on July 1. Failure to do so may result in confusion and lower-rung officials have to face the wrath of those refusing to pay the bills or understand the nuances of the scheme.
In another guarantee, “Yuva Nidhi,” the party in its manifesto promised to collect information about youth in the age group of 18 to 25 who continue to remain unemployed 180 days after completing their degree/diploma and give monthly financial assistance of Rs 3000 and 1500, respectively. Now, as per the condition announced by the government on Friday, it will only cover those who pass out in 2022-23. That effectively leaves out a large number of unemployed youths who will be looking for jobs for several months or even years and need some assistance. The government needs to relook at the condition to help a greater number of deserving youth.
As identifying genuine and deserving beneficiaries may be a challenge for ‘Griha Lakshmi’ (Rs 2,000 per month for every woman head of the family), the government is taking over two months to roll it out, though the application process will start from June 15.
However, the government is unlikely to face problems in implementing ‘Anna Bhagya’ (10 Kg food grains per person in every BPL family) and ‘Uchita Prayana’ (free travel for women in all government-owned non-AC buses), the latter being the first of the five guarantees to be rolled out on June 11.
Apart from the effective implementation of the guarantees, the government also needs to focus on asset creation, encourage entrepreneurship, help farmers, and give a push to irrigation projects. The cost of financial profligacy has to be kept in mind, while there should be a fair balance in the distribution of resources for state asset creation, employment generation, and welfare.
If one goes by the body language of the ministers when they walked out after a nearly four-hour marathon cabinet meeting — in which they discussed in detail the implementation of the guarantees — they appear to be wary of the humongous challenge ahead of them. The enthusiasm that was seen while announcing the guarantees in election rallies was not visible.
In the next few months, even up to the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the whole political narrative will revolve around the implementation of the five guarantees. Even for a leader like Siddaramaiah, who has presented a record number of 13 budgets, it is going to be a big challenge.