DAYA SAGAR
When ever there are elections to Legislative Assemblies / Lok Sabha the politicians are often found showing concern for the economically weaker sections as well as the unemployed youth as well as those who are under employed. The numbers of such people are always large and hence the politicians start showing concern for them like regularization of the under employed ( daily wagers / consolidated wage employees / those employed on wages lower than the legitimate wage for the same job). No doubt such situations/ compulsions do emerge where there are more job seekers than the jobs as well as when the economic condition of the job seeker’s family is very bad. In earlier times during elections often there used to be complaints / reports that the ‘candidates’ are found paying money to needy people for ‘buying’ a vote or pay to some local leaders for influencing their followers. No doubt now also money is spent ( fairly / unfairly) for organizing rallies and ‘entertaining’ the voters to increase the prospects but a new custom has started for ‘indirectly’ buying the support of voter citizen through exploiting the economic inadequacies of the masses like promising ,if voted to power, to pay in kind/ cash to individuals not out of the self pocket but out of the state exchequer. There is lot of scope for such exploitations in India whereas per government disclosers more than 80 Cr population is dependent on just 5 kg/ capita/ month of free ration for survival.
Similarly almost all parties who can think of forming the governments are found promising to pay cash to every /BPL woman or head woman in every family/ BPL family , laptop to students/ every students, health cover to every family through insurance upto 5 Lakh /7 Lakh/25Lakh, free gas cylinders to every family or BPL family , free 200/ 300 units electricity per month to all or designated families, some recently promising to waive off all the outstanding electric bills in full or part for all or for some and in the light of on going elections in J&K promises to remove the ‘smart electric meters’ as installed in J&K since it is alleged that the said meters unduly “add” extra units in the account ( which is technically nowhere correct and even government machinery has not been able to convince the consumers that over consumption cannot be due to smart meter but can be due to consumption that gets recorded when a meter is installed on the line ( may it be ordinary mechanical meter / electronic meter/ of the modern smart meter ).
Anyhow questions that are being raised here are (1) Why those parties that were already in power in a state or are already in power in other states had not already extended such benefits to people there ? (2) Good , due to socio economic needs some costless support/ benefits could be a just need but why not the government in power/ party aspiring for power also simultaneously place before the people programme / schemes that would also economically make them in time sound worth not needing such costless direct support ? (3) So strangely a party in one state election promises Rs.2000/month /woman in a family and in another state may be found promising Rs.3000/woman/ month/family ? AAP has promised Rs.1000 for every woman in a family in the age group of 18-60 yr age , one would ask , why not beyond 60 Yrs ? (4) Why do not the political parties at the same time promise that no any additional direct/ indirect taxes will be imposed ? (5) Governments are spending thousands of crores of INR in the health and education sector where the employed staff is paid much more salary as compared to generally being paid in the private schools / clinics but still even a low wage earner person visits a private clinic even for ordinary ailment or a street vendor prefers to send child to a private academy even in a city like Jammu or Srinagar what to talk of remote areas .No doubt it is welcome to promise health insurance cover from INR 5 to 7 Lakh or 25 Lakh per family but political parties must at the same time come with proposals assuring that the government hospitals/ schools would be made to deliver worth the salaries being paid ( lowest primary school teacher in regular grade gets around Rs.50000/pm where as one in private academies may be getting in general around INR10 000 to INR 15 000 only ), should not they ? (6) and like
So the common voter citizen must take serious note of such politics and must legitimately question the promising politicians for their proposals and make them to make public in clear understandable terms (i) what is the level of BPL ( below poverty line) or the beneficiary who would be offered cost less benefits ? (ii) Will laptops be given to all students or of some classes or of some merit or of some economic levels must be clearly disclosed (iii) when the Ayushman health card is to benefit all residents in one state then why is the same card benefiting only BPL families in some states ?
Why not also appoint an audit agency dedicated only for checking the validity of those holding status cards like BPL ( below poverty line ) since in India even a beggar is paying taxes ( indirect taxes on what he consumes / uses) and it is often quoted in private that on check one would surely get some BPL card holder in the Qs on the wine shops. Cancellation of wrong cards would surely compensate for salary paid to audit staff.
And not only that political parties pro
mise new jobs for the unemployed in government but they do not tell whether the already employment on daily wage or consolidated salary that may be not even half the due wages will be given legitimate salary / grade dedicated to a postr like has been the case with the Anganwari Workers who almost do the job atleast no less than a junior grade clerk and like SPOs ( special police officers ) in police who are made to start with Rs.6000/ pm with promise to pay Rs.9000/pm after 3 years to pay Rs.12000 after 5 years to pay Rs18000 /pm after 15 yrs or so ( may be exact figures different but surely not much different).
Hope the political parties promising regularization of already employed daily wagers/ consolidated salary workers / new employments promise to pay the SPOs/Anganwari Workers atleast regular salary in Pay Level-2 of VII pay commission.
(The writer is a Sr Journalist & a known analyst of J&K affairs)