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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Why parties prefer freebies to investments in election manifestoes -Ashok Gulati

Why parties prefer freebies to investments in election manifestoes -Ashok Gulati

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published Published on Nov 27, 2018   modified Modified on Nov 27, 2018
-Financial Express

It is the season of promising freebies to lure voters. Congress leads in these promises. It has promised a loan waiver in Chhattisgarh within 10 days of coming to power; and the hiking of minimum support price (MSP) of paddy to Rs 2,500/quintal, up from Rs 1,750/quintal, a 43% raise over the already increased MSP of paddy. In Madhya Pradesh, it has promised a loan waiver of up to Rs 2 lakh, MSPs as per MS Swaminathan formula cost C2 + 50%; a pension of Rs 1,000/per month to marginal farmers above the age of 60 years, and Rs 51,000 for the marriage of daughters of small holders. And so on. It is clear that when a political party is out of power, it can promise the moon, but when it comes to power, it muddles and delays in fulfilling its own promise as they are often not in sync with budget realities or any rational long-term vision for the farm sector.

BJP was no better. It promised to waive farmers’ loans in Uttar Pradesh when it was not in power. In fact, it was the prime minister himself who promised to do this in the very first meeting of the UP Cabinet, if they were voted to power. And this seemed to have worked. Congress seems to have learnt these tricks and is now promising loan waivers in almost all major states it is fighting elections. And if these trends are any indications for the things to come, the Parliamentary elections will have promises of farm loan waivers in all remaining states, and further hikes in MSPs, and may be some provision for pensions for aged farmers. All this may easily cost the exchequer anything between Rs 2 to Rs 3 lakh crore. Congress often asserts if the NDA government can ‘waive off’ Rs 2 lakh crore for a few industrialists in the name of ‘restructuring their NPAs’, what is the harm in waiving off farm loans of millions of farmers.

The moot question that arises is: Will these freebies put Indian agriculture on a sustainable high growth path that augments farmers’ incomes? The simple answer is no. In fact, they may worsen the condition of agriculturists over the medium- to long-run. These band-aid solutions will eat into the scarce resources of the sector, shrinking public investments in agriculture, and lowering the growth of this sector. Even worse is that such promises of freebies take away the focus from structural reforms that are urgently needed in agriculture. The prime minister’s promise to double farmers’ real incomes by 2022-23 cannot be realised with loan waivers and higher MSPs. Even the current MSPs of kharif crops that have been announced on the formula of 50% margin over cost A2+FL does not give much comfort to farmers as the market prices of most of the kharif crops are reeling way below (10%-40%) their announced MSPs. So, promising even higher MSPs for these crops is either befooling farmers or rubbing salt on their wounds!

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Financial Express, 26 November, 2018, https://www.financialexpress.com/opinion/from-plate-to-plough-its-raining-freebies-for-farmers-in-election-season/1393496/


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