Bengaluru
he Congress, which got a decisive mandate in Karnataka thanks to five guarantee schemes, has now been forced to defer at least three of them after facing hurdles and glitches, thereby giving ammunition to the Opposition, including the BJP and the JDS.
The first 30 days of the new government have been all about how the Siddaramaiah-led government would fulfil the promises even as the state exchequer is expected to get poorer by at least Rs 60,000 crore to honour the poll promises. The five schemes—Anna Bhaghya (free rice), Gruha Shakti (200 units of free power), Gruha Lakshmi (Rs 2,000 for every household-woman), Shakti (free transport for women), Yuva Nidhi (Rs 2,000 for jobless youth)—were announced by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah with several riders and fine print after the first cabinet meeting, setting off a “foul” cry by the opposition and some sharp reactions from a section of society. However, the Congress has defended itself by saying that the outreach programme was for the needy.
Notwithstanding the fact that the party flew down the Gandhi siblings and AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge who have also signed and distributed guarantee cards, now the current dispensation has engaged in a political war of words over rice procurement from the Food Corporation of India. The state government had written to the FCI on 9 June about procuring 2.8 lakh metric tonnes of rice at around Rs 26 per kg and the corporation too had responded positively. But in a sudden U-turn, the FCI, citing a change in policy prompted by the Union ministry, expressed its inability, leading to a full-blown political slugfest between BJP and the Congress.
While both the BJP and Congress held protest rallies over the issue across the state on Tuesday, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah followed it up on Thursday with his Delhi visit where he met Union Home Minister Amit Shah to register his protest over “rice politics”. He was assured by Shah that Consumer Affairs Minister Piyush Goyal would hear them out following which Food and Civil Supplies Minister K.H. Muniyappa met the former, only to come out crying “foul”. “This smacks of politics and vendetta for losing elections. Though the FCI has enough stocks, they are refusing to sell it to us,” Muniyappa told reporters after the meeting.
Karnataka needs close to 5 lakh metric tonnes of rice to honour its Anna Bhagya scheme where the beneficiaries get 10 kg free rice every month. About half of it is procured by the state and the fight is for the remaining 2.5 lakh metric tonnes. The Karnataka government has reached out to several states including Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Punjab among other rice-producing states, but only Chhattisgarh has positively responded to the appeal for help. However, the transportation cost is not making the option viable. With this being the situation, the state is now looking at procuring rice from the open market through tenders and in all likelihood, and it is highly unlikely that the government will be able to launch Anna Bhaghya on 1 July as planned.
As far as implementation of the guarantee schemes is concerned, both KPCC president and Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar and Chief Minister Siddaramaiah have maintained that these will be implemented and that the government was clearing the decks for effectively implementing all the guarantees.
As for the remaining four schemes, the Shakti scheme of providing free bus rides to any part of the state for women has received stupendous response, with the basic or first category of buses getting choked. In the first week of launching the scheme, women took to pilgrimage while availing the facility. Certain private bus operators have expressed displeasure as the scheme has hit their buses. Transport Minister Ramalinga Reddy told The Sunday Guardian: “Private buses ply mainly on long distance luxury category and our free services are in basic category; so there is no question of taking away their business.
There is a lot of enthusiasm which will die down very soon and there will be order,” he said. When asked about viability, he said, “We will run the scheme as long as the state government refunds the tickets. The transport corporations are already under losses and not in a position to independently run the scheme.”
While the Yuva Nidhi scheme, where unemployed youth get Rs 2,000 up to 24 months after passing out of graduation, is yet to kick off, the Bhagya Jyoti scheme of providing Rs 2,000 to the woman head of the household has been delayed by a month. Shivakumar, who is overseeing the scheme, told this paper that an app is being programmed and the scheme will be effectively implemented in the first week of August. “We have to receive a declaration from each and every family as to who is the woman head, verify and integrate Aadhaar and PAN as those who file IT returns are not eligible. All these complications have delayed the scheme,” he said. Last but not the least, the Gruha Jyoti scheme of providing 200 units of free power is embroiled in another controversy and hit by technical glitches and server issues.
Siddaramiah, while declaring the scheme, had said that an average of power use for one year would be taken into account and only the average utility under 200 units would qualify under the scheme. Even if one unit more is used over and above 200, the consumer would have to pay up the entire bill. Putting aside the confusion and complications, the consumer did try to register under the scheme but returned home frustrated as there were technical snags involving servers. The government is trying to fix the issue by increasing the number of servers, but the issue largely remains.
Another setback for the government was the revision of power allowed by KERC, which was approached by power distributors under the BJP regime which saw almost a 50% jump in power bills. While the government clarified the issue, MSMEs went on strike threatening to lock down factories indefinitely.
Even as Chief Minister Siddaramaiah is busy holding marathon meetings to present his record 14th budget on 7 July, the turbulence over the implementation of the schemes has left him in a fix, as resource mobilisation is key to make the schemes successful, at a time when the party high command is making the Karnataka elections a template for the upcoming elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh.