Freebies

The political parties have a habit of announcing freebies before elections, and sometimes to save their power they announce mid-term freebies to voters and even the MLAs. They announce these freebies as if they have the funds in the state kitty to full fill the promises made, but they forget whatever funds are available in the state’s kitty, are collected by way of taxes, and as per the constitution, these funds are supposed to be spent on development, like building infrastructures, school/colleges, medical facilities etc for the citizens, and not to spend the same on poll promises made by a political party who is ruling the state.  Most of the time the promises made are only at the time of elections, and they are never full filled. Sometimes even when some good promises are made, they can not be full filled because of a lack of funds in the state’s kitty.

The poor Indian voters get attracted by these freebies, and vote for the particular party, and when the same promise is not full filled, the voter gets disillusioned and starts blaming the political party.

Below, I am giving two recent examples of freebies

1 AAP political party which won the Punjab state elections with a thumping majority recently, in their election manifesto they promised Rs 1000 every month to all the women above 18 years of age. This they just announced as election gimmicks, without realizing the financial implications on the state exchequer. As per the records available, there are about 8 million (80 lakhs) women who are above 18 years of age in Punjab. Now if the ruling party AAP wants to full fill their this poll promise, then they will need Rs 8000 million per month, which is Rs 800 Cr per month, Rs 9,600 Cr per year. The state is already under debt of Rs 5 lakh Crore, and without realizing the debt figure AAP went on to announce the freebies. Other than these freebies to women, there are many more freebies announced by AAP, only gods know how they are going to full fill all the freebies.

2 Recently Maharashtra govt announced that they will build 300 flats for MLAs/MLCs coming from out of Mumbai Metropolitan Region. Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) will build this residential complex which will have High Income Group (HIG) flats. The state govt has said that for MLAs coming from out of Mumbai, it is a big challenge to buy or rent flats in Mumbai. So, all the MLAs barring from Mumbai, Thane, and Navi Mumbai, will get flats in the new complex. In general, the flats built by MHADA are cheaper than the flats build by private parties. Even ordinary citizens of Maharashtra apply for these flats whenever they are constructed, and they are allotted to the general public by the lottery system.

After the announcement was made, Deputy CM said the flats, which are to be given to MLAs, will be built in Goregaon area of Mumbai, and it will cost them Rs 70 lakh. It was added that only MLAs who do not already own a house in Mumbai will be allotted flats.

As per my knowledge, the HIG flat is of about 1000/1200 square feet (SFT) area, now taking the average construction cost of Rs 3000 per SFT, the cost of each flat will be around 30 lakh per flat, which means the construction of 300 flats will cost state exchequer Rs 90 Cr, which is going to be unplanned/unbudgeted expense. The market value of each flat will be around Rs 3 to 3.5 Cr.

As per the opposition in the assembly, these flats are given to the MLAs as Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) govt,(which is a coalition of Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress) is afraid that many MLAs are ready for defections before the next elections and this is sop given to them, so that they do not leave their party.

I failed to understand why these flats are to be built for these MLAs (coming from outside Mumbai), when the state govt has already got two MLAs hostel in Mumbai, where these MLAs stay when the assembly session is in progress. OR there is some truth in what the opposition Party BJP is saying.

These are just two examples, of what extent these political parties will go on to save their power.

These MLAs/MPs/Corporators  start getting a lifelong pension after they complete one term. Surprisingly, if a Corporator complete one term  he starts getting a pension, now suppose the same Corporator becomes MLA and here also he completes one term, then he will get Corporator pension plus MLAs pension, and if this MLA then becomes MP then after completing one term he will start getting three pensions. As these people are themselves lawmakers, no one can question them, at the time when the issue of pension/salaries/other allowances come on the floor of the house, then all of them will forget their differences and vote or their own betterment. There are plenty of more benefits these people’s representatives get, which will make an ordinary person ashamed of himself about what he is doing.

In my opinion, all these people representatives are doing social service and they are not employed by any govt organization, so how come they are getting pensions. In real life, no one is getting a pension when not working for govt organization, then why these people’s representatives are getting the pension?

I think we need total reform in the sector of people’s representation. What freebies they are getting, may not be available to top executives of a multinational organization

Friends, what do you say in this matter.

Waiting for your views on this blog.

Anil Malik

Mumbai, India

29^th March 2022.