FREEBIES ARE POLITICA FAILURES CREATING FISCAL CHALLENGES & VOIDS FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

The Supreme Court Recently sought responses from the Union government and the Election Commission of India (ECI) on the continued ‘tamasha’ of Ruling parties promising or distributing ‘irrational freebies’ using public funds the role of freebies in India is expanding from the past decade ruling parties have changed their strategy to attract voters freebies involves wide range goods & services such as cycles, cockers etc. So, what are the causes of rising ideas of freebies & how it is creating fiscal challenges, and VA oid for development?
Causes of Rising in Ideas of Freebies 
Criminalization of Politics: According to the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), 233 MPs in the current Lok Sabha are facing criminal charges, up from 187 in 2014. These candidates often resort to the distribution of liquor, money, goods etc. to lure voters. 
Myopic opinion of masses: It is believed that Indian masses vote and react more to short term freebies and less to long term policies. This encourages parties to offer more freebies.
Historical Baggage: Since independence, parties have been promising some form of freebies to attract voters. Even if a new party comes to power, then also it can’t rationalize or outrightly abolish the freebie commitments of prior governments e.g., Several State Governments have been forced to continue power and irrigation subsidies due to political pressure. Governments fear that discontinuance will antagonize their voter base.
Concealment of Actual performance: Freebies are often used as a means to conceal the poor performance of the incumbent Government on economic and social parameters. They provide an opportunity to alter the voter’s mindset from real issues to short term gains.
Domino Effect: The rise in coalition era politics since the 1990s has witnessed a rise of new political parties. These small and new parties have to offer more freebies than larger parties to lure voters. Moreover, with the increase in competition among the parties to seek the votes, each party tries to outdo the others in terms of populist promises.
This is the major political failure done by the many ruling parties and causes much fiscal and development squeezing.
What are the CHALLENGES FISCAL & DEVELOPMENT GROWTH? 
Through Some of the freebies are succeeding in eliminating of Social & economical divide like free vaccination, and incentives for rich & poor many freebies are not working as they mentioned and also creating challenges like
Undermines the spirit of Democracy: This is the primary concern as many people tend to vote for parties based on the free incentives offered by them. They fail to judge them on their performance and don’t vote as per merit. Even the Supreme Court has observed that freebies shake the root of free and fair elections.
Fiscal Stress: Due to the increase in the number of freebies the amount of money govt should invest in it will increase which increase the financial burden on the state recent example the State of Punjab's ruling govt promised 300watt free electricity to BPL people so it crated 5000 to 7000 crore burden of state not only fiscal stress but also increase carbon footprint othe f state as it keeps on generating electricity which can threats environment  
Fall in Productivity & Development: Freebies create a feeling in the masses that they can live with minimal effort. This decreases their productivity towards work e.g., a trend has been created that whoever avail loan from banks does not repay them, expecting a waiver of loans during the election. This gives rise to moral hazards and an incentive to default. With this liquidity available for new investments will reduce this state cannot see any kind of development thesis as the effects that are direct results associated with irrational freebies they can be restricted by 
The onus of restricting Freebies lies on all of us (people, political parties) they can be restricted by strengthening internal party democracy so that promises of development and not freebies are made in the elections. This would also reduce the magnitude of criminalization of politics, by placing Outan a can me-based budget, a CAG audit report should be placed without delays, and educating voters more on long term benefits this is some kinds of measures that can help to reduce freebie culture and strengthen Indian democracy 

CH.J.V.K.Sathya Swaroop
 


 


Popular posts from this blog

ISSUES IN IMPLEMETING KAVACH SYSTEM ?

Image
There are frequent railway accidents in india due to  Mistakes in the signal system, lack of vigilance of loco pilots, and other technical problems are causing two trains to come on the same track and face accidents. The way the Kora Mandal Express met with a terrible accident near Bahanagabazar in Odisha in June... Recently, the incident of a goods train colliding with the Sealda Kanchanjanga Express in West Bengal has made the safety of the railway questionable. Such accidents can be curbed with the 'Kavach' system. 140 km per hour The efficiency tests conducted recently between Mathura-Palwal showed that this system can provide protection even to trains running at high speed. Shortage of funds Experiments have been going on for years to prevent trains from colliding. Among them 'Kavach' is modern. The system was designed by the Railway Standards Organization (RDSO) in association with three organizations after studying the models of different countries. T...
Read more

ON WHAT FACTORS STATES SHOULD MEASURE THE SUCCESS OF FREE BUS SCHEME FOR WOMEN ? HOW EVIDENCE BASED ADMINISTRATION WILL HELP TO MEASURE IT ?

Image
Delhi, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Punjab and recently, Telangana and Andhra pradesh have made it free for the women to travel in buses operated as part of Public Transport. As per the world bank report Women are the most significant, the largest number users of public transport in India, Women consider choosing the slower means of transport since it is affordable rather than choosing the fastest means of transport. This deters them from stepping out in the first place but the whole debate of Free bus scheme  for women divided between  as it is a freebie are vote Bank scheme but no one is talking about how can govt  effectively implement scheme ? are how can govt measure success of the scheme ?,so let's look into what a NGO in Tamil Nadu did to measure the success of free bus scheme ? and what other states should learn from It . How NGO In TN Measured The Success of Free Bus Scheme ?  Citizen consumer and civil action group surveyed about 3000 women's across 6...
Read more

Criticism on Civic volunteer system in Westbengal & How Politics-Civic volunteer nexus is working in west bengal ?

Image
Kolkata Police, following the shocking role of its civic volunteer Sanjay Roy in a doctor's rape and murder case, has directed all unit heads to ensure that all personnel, including civic volunteers, adhere to the force's rules and discipline. Abuse of power has become routine for such organisations.this crime is another example of how the force raised for community engagement is "turning rogue"  CM Mamata Banerjee Govt introduced it in 2018  has set a target of recruiting 1,30,000 civic volunteers, according to the chief minister’s office’s website. Till date 1,19,916 volunteers have been recruited. Qualification for recruitment  The minimum age and qualification to be a civil volunteer is 20 years and Class VIII pass respectively. They are posted in a nearby or same locality of which they are a resident. A volunteer gets an honorarium of around ₹15,000 per month. Officially, their recruitment is done through an interview conducted by an enrollment commit...
Read more