Rules are needed to restrain government

In a recent government meeting (January 3), the State Finance Minister has reportedly announced that State Government
Rules are needed to restrain government

Udayan Hazarika

(The writer can be reached at udayanhazarika@hotmail.com)

In a recent government meeting (January 3), the State Finance Minister has reportedly announced that State Government will give scooties to all the girl students in the next year who secure first division even if their numbers becomes more than one lakh. This is taken as an election-time promise as for a State which depends on the Centre for 73 per cent of is annually required resources, cannot perhaps dare to execute such schemes. Already, in their last budget the current ministry has incorporated such huge numbers of populist schemes that one would confuse it with a party manifesto. It is indeed very natural that in an election year the party in power would try to woo every segment of the electorate. However, unfortunate is the fact that due to the sudden attack of the pandemic government was forced to put a halt to the execution of the schemes for almost eight months.

In the early part of this financial year, the lockdown had closed all the openings through which revenue comes to the State exchequer putting a complete halt to the execution of the popular schemes. Uncertainties prevailed even in regard to payment of salaries to the Government employees. But the award of the 15th Finance Commission has come as a rescue to the Government. The Fifteenth Finance Commission has recommended Rs 26776 crore as its share of Central taxes and duties along with an amount of Rs 7579 crore as revenue deficit grant to the State for the year 2020-21. Major part of this share has already been transferred to the State by the Central Government and it appears that the whole amount has been put to financing the populist schemes.

In view of targeting only the implementation of individual beneficiary schemes, the development activities in the State have almost come to a standstill. Regular schemes in agriculture, irrigation, etc departments have suffered a lot. This is only to happen when populist schemes like giving scooty occupies the centre stage in the agenda of the Government. Initially Government's target was to distribute 20,000 scooties; but later the number has gone up to 22,000. This scheme was initially announced in the year 2018-19 but was not implemented. This year an amount of Rs 144.30 crore has been budgeted for the purpose. People have raised various questions taking into account of this beneficiary scheme. First what purpose will it serve? This is because, around 5000 to 10,000 of those students who have already opted to go out for higher studies and have already taken admissions in various medical, engineering, veterinary and other such professional courses within and outside the State what purpose will it serve to them. Of the remaining students, there are very few who need a scooty to reach their general colleges. There could have been better socially effective schemes than giving scooty to this segment of the students. There are thousands of students who have abandoned their studies after their HSSLC or even HSLC for financial reasons. The Government has no data about this category of students and the type of help they require. There are parents who mortgaged their barest minimum properties for education of their wards. There is no survey to identify how many such indebted families are totally at a loss and going down to the lowest stratum of the poverty line.

Government needs to understand that serious intervention is necessary in the areas of restoring confidence of the unsuccessful candidates of various public examinations. Every year millions of students fail in such examinations and only a few of them come back to the stream with confidence. These students add to the informal sector workforce and at times become desperate and for not getting any employment engage themselves in various antisocial activities. Many of them remain unproductive for ages despite having their potential to become effective livelihood earners. Many State governments have formulated policies for identifying the potentiality of this category of students. Government may take cue from such policies.

Government could also identify a group of brilliant students having their aims to become civil servants and make arrangement for the best possible coaching for them so as to enable them to realise their targets of life and to serve the people in various spheres in future.

Another scheme in which the government is giving much effort for implementation is the Swami Vivekananda Assam Youth Empowerment (SVAYEM). This is another scheme which was announced in the year 2018-19 but was not implemented. Through this self-employment generating scheme the government proposed to cover 2 lakhs of the total 19 lakh unemployed youths. Reportedly Government has already called for applications from prospective beneficiaries through its specific website. Under this scheme, government proposes to provide Rs 50,000 to each selected youths as seed capital. There is neither any loan component nor any terms and conditions set for repayment of the amount. Information about the applicant's income limit is also not necessary to obtain the grant and it is also not essential to have any experience of the work for which the applicant proposes utilise the grant. The fund will be made out to the applicant freely and without any mortgage or security. As per the industries department, in the year 2018-19 around 5,299 applicants were sanctioned amounts under this scheme but the Department is silent about its utilization. It is a dangerous proposition to expect that an applicant who has simply passed his matriculation examination will invest the money so deposited in his account effectively along with his four other partners and continue the business. Government took substantial risk in giving out such huge public money without keeping any collateral security. The cost of the scheme i.e. Rs 1,000 crore is not a small amount for an economy which is a dependent economy.

In this context another scheme worth mentioning here is the scheme of giving financial assistance to common people under the title Orunodoi. Lots have been said about this scheme by the Finance Minister himself but at the core of the scheme it is merely the distribution of public money to families having monthly income less than Rs 16,666. Under the scheme, an amount of Rs 830 is given to a family as a subsidy to various food items such as lentil, sugar, vegetables & fruits and medicines. The family gets this amount without offering any service to the government in exchange. Under the scheme it was initially proposed to give Rs 10,000 at one go to each family but that did not happen. Now the government will be able to pay only for three months i.e. from December to February. Although a total of Rs 2,800 crore has been budgeted for this scheme, yet government will not be able to spend not even one fourth (Rs 19.10 lakhs) of it for the remaining three months of the year.

Government should review such schemes which cost the public exchequer so dearly. If government really wants to help the poor people, then they must work out who should actually get and what government should get in exchange lest government get a bunch of people who live on others without any work. Government may also think of merging this scheme with MNREGA as a State support to the scheme ensuring that at least working people gets few more days' work. Giving relief to the people in this way is not desirable at the cost of public money. It is at this juncture that strict rules are needed to restrain Government on such spending.

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