Er. P.L Khushu
A word of wisdom for the preceptors, of the I.N.D.I Alliance needs to be percolated to these people to know as to how much development this country ( India) has made during the NDA Rule so far headed by Modi. They are the refused and the defused lot of the rejected and the dynastic politicians of this country who are now almost not only angry, but also hungry, for getting power back, which they misused to their and their dynasties benefits, while ruling this country in one form or the other. A glimpse of such developments and encouraging steps taken by the NDA Government under the dynamic and honest leadership of Modi, for the welfare of this country and its people, are briefly mentioned below, not for these hungry leaders of dynastic bases only, but for the general masses of India too, so that the innocent people of India may not get swayed with the cynical sops they are offering to the people of India to get power back. All such sops and favors which they are offering to the people, are loaded with a threat, that it will make the country bankrupt. Before deliberating upon their such moves further , a word of caution is necessary for all of us, to ensure that their usurping the governing power of the country back, by these politicians, will be alarming and suicidal, when the country will become a bankrupt and will be divided on caste, color and religion basis.
India’s economy achieved a historic milestone recently, when its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) crossed the $4 trillion-mark in nominal terms for the first time ever, according to several media reports. This shows that India has achieved a strong mile stone by crossing $4 trillion-mark in DGP, making it a strong moment for India’s presence in the global presence apart from gaining an international pride. Such a situation for India has a direct link with the traumatic leadership of our Prime Minister Modi, who has taken India to unprecedented heights. It is said and speculated that it will take just two years more for India to become the third largest economy in the world. India’s economy boasts diversity and swift growth, fuelled by key sectors such as information technology, services, agriculture, and manufacturing. The nation capitalizes on its broad domestic market, a youthful and technologically adept labor force and an expanding middle class. Modi is probably the first Indian prime minister to carve the technology so much for his welfare programmes for India. His government’s Unified Payment Interface (UPI) has revolutionized India’s economy by facilitating digital payments even in villages. What a fantastic growth.
Direct Benefits Transfer (DBT) was another revolutionary scheme that the Modi government utilized for financial inclusion of India’s masses. In the 1980s, then PM Rajiv Gandhi had said that out of every rupee sent by the Centre government, only 15 paise reaches the poor. The DBT has changed that. With the help of the (Jan Dhan + Aadhar + Mobile) trinity, the Modi government achieved the feat of transferring subsidies directly to the people through their bank accounts. Direct transfer of subsidies reduced leakages and delays while bringing transparency and accountability to the process, thus saving the 85 paise that used to go missing from a rupee. Financial inclusion not only helped with disbursal of benefits, but also increased India’s market size and financial inclusion. India saved $27 billion in key central government schemes through DBT as it is swift and has eliminated corruption, as per the government reports. This nearly almost a decade-long period of Modi governments rule has changed India’s economy in definite ways, when Modi and his government took decision after decision that made deep, lasting impacts on the economy of this country. India’s technology – based governance, adopted by Modi and his government, is now admired the world over. India has developed a world-class digital public infrastructure to support its sustainable development goals and with its journey upwards in this regard, making it lessons for other countries embarking on their own digital transformation. “International Monetary Fund has said in a working paper recently, that the digitalization in India, has supported formalization of India’s economy and Aadhaar has helped in the direct transfer of payments to beneficiaries while reducing leakages”. ” India’s growth continues to be resilient despite some signs of moderation in growth, says the World Bank in its latest India Development Update, the World Bank India’s biannual flagship publication”. “The Update notes that although significant challenges remain in the global environment, India was one of the fastest growing economies in the world. The overall growth remains robust and is estimated to be 6.9 percent for the full year with real GDP growing 7.7 percent year-on-year during the first three quarters of fiscal year 2022/23. There were some signs of moderation in the second half of FY 22/23. Growth was underpinned by strong investment activity bolstered by the government’s apex push and buoyant private consumption, particularly among higher income earners. Inflation remained high, averaging around 6.7 percent in FY22/23, but the current-account deficit narrowed in Q3, on the back of strong growth in service exports and easing global commodity prices. This is a micro description of the development of India’s growth, when there are so many other sectors, when a sky rise developments have taken place.
There were other multiple reforms taken recourse to by the Modi government for the welfare of the people of India. NDA Government embarking on ushering in game-changing reforms through the use of Jan Dhan, Aadhar and Mobile (JAM), a unique combination of three to implement direct transfer of benefits. This innovative methodology has been able to allow transfer of benefits in a leakage-proof, well-targeted and cashless manner. There have been cut in subsidy leakages but not in subsidy themselves. NDA Government built a national consensus and introduced a Bill to amend the Constitution to implement the Goods and Services Tax (GST). The GST has put in place a state-of-the-art indirect tax system, Swachh Bharat mission was launched, for a clean India which was thought to be the best tribute India could pay to Mahatma Gandhi on his 150 birth anniversary in 2019,” said Shri Narendra Modi as he launched the Swachh Bharat Mission at Rajpath in New Delhi. On 2nd October 2014, Swachh Bharat Mission was launched throughout length and breadth of the country as a national movement. While leading the mass movement for cleanliness, the Prime Minister exhorted people to fulfill Mahatma Gandhi’s dream of a clean and hygienic India.
NDA Government gave massive push to education & skill development Various unique measures were taken to augment the quality and reach of education. A fully IT based Financial Aid Authority to administer & monitor all education loans and scholarships through Pradhan Mantri Vidyalakshmi Karyakram, was introduced for this purpose
Building the infrastructure for a resurgent India was NDA Government’s push to infrastructure is evident. Be it Railways, Roads, or Shipping, the government is focusing on augmenting the infrastructure to aid in connectivity. For the first time, Railways budget focused on structural reforms and infrastructure changes. Announcement of new trains, which used to be an annual political gimmick, has now become a routine activity. Numerous passenger-friendly amenities like Wi-fi on railway stations, passenger helpline (138), security helpline (182), paperless unreserved ticketing, e-catering, mobile security app and CCTV cameras for safety of women, etc have been launched in our railways.
Probably all these doted alliance partners are trying to turn a Nelson’s Eye to all such herculean achievements of Modi and his team, while feeling frustrated about their future under such circumstances before the electorate. They feel that they will be rejected by the people of India in the coming national elections and shall have to rest in oblivion, for their earlier damages to the national polity and economic growth of India.
After all who are these political leaders who are the pioneers of making a parallel body to combat Modi in the formation of I.N.D.I. Alliance, which is looking like a fragmented body and can be compared through its nomenclature as a lead to broken I.N.D.IA, that is India with dots and doubts. They are happy with each other on the culminating platforms collectively for that period of their such meetings, but when they go home as a political party of India, they abuse and become rivals of each other. How can they come together and with what manifesto. They have not so far come out with any model or a road map as to how will they share power between themselves, if by mistake they come to power collectively.
All these political parties are dynasty-based entities, trying to owe their political allegiance to rule the country or the states to which they belong to, considering it their decade’s old inheritance, which now stands shattered and demolished by Modi governments honest and a dedicated regime. The age-old cynical tendencies of dynastic rules of these political parties, coupled with the exploitations of the innocent electorate on caste, color and religion is an attempt to divide the nation on differential basis. This is being done by the chronic and die hard politicians of political lust and greed of this country which is coming to surface with the creation of situations like dotted I.N.D.I.A. Probably monarchial legacy is considered as the birthright of some of such self-nominated heir apparent personals of such political parties. Such political leaders have even gone to all the extents of indecent politics, for purposes of garnering the votes on an anti national and a communal passion.
As for as the offering of financial sops of sorts, by these dynasty based political parties to the people of India, without any considerations for the economic stability of the country, as a whole are concerned, it looks suicidal and alarming. With such musings, these political parties are taking the country to devastation and bankruptcy.
We have the instances of our neighboring country around us. Such dynasty based political parties are bent to garner power by hook or by crook. A significant political party of this country is bent upon to barter anything for making its prince and princess, the rulers of this country, when they are not worth it. Such a political to the dismay of entire nation, showed the door to age-old veterans of this party, which has an age-old base. The reason being to install its prince to govern the nation, when the nation as whole is refusing this prince.
What is observed in the recent elections of various states of this country, which are afoot presently, the election manifesto of these dynastic political parties, has been the spreading of ” Sops” culture for the voters. For these political parties sky is the limit of such sops, even if it brings economic devastations and extreme setbacks to the real development of the nation as a whole. What is the debt index of these states where such sops are being distributed is not the worry of these political parties. How much derailments and damages will occur to the real development of these states in its expansions in all respects of development sectors is not their concern, by offering such sops, to the people for their vote bank politics at the cost of a common tax payers money. These political parties only want power to rule and then drive the nation as also the various states of this nation to a stage of bankruptcy.
Who does not know what legacy of economic distress was left over by the UPA government after losing the elections in 2014, which has been made over by the NDA government under the leadership of Modi so far.
The other unfortunate issue, which they are now embarking upon, is the caste culture. Of late, these political parties are making now it a slogan to ask for caste census of sorts to woo the voters. Raising the slogan of “Jitni abadi, utna haq”, one of the present congress leaders, has said that the rights of the people should be proportionate to their numbers and sought a similar caste census at the national level. Other opposition parties have also demanded such a census in other states too at the national level. The BJP has joined the issue with PM Modi criticizing the caste census as a ploy to divide Hindus. Questioning Congress on rights allocation based on population, Modi asked if the political parties want to decrease the rights of religious minorities. But for Modi, poor people are the biggest “abadi” (population), of the country and they have the first right over resources. Welfare of the poor is my aim,” he said.
It needs a serious thought by the protectors of our constitution, that this ” Sop” culture among the voters is limited to the nations monetary indices of sorts, particularly the national expenditure index of this country as per the population norm of this country. It has to be ensured that this does not damage the developmental aspects of this country, for which a taxpayer of India is paying through his or her nose. By offering such unlimited “Sops”, it deprives a taxpayer of his inherent rights of getting uniform development benefits in lieu of their tax component, which is their fundamental right through the constitution of India. It may need a parliamentary legislation in the shape of an amendment to the constitution, to restrict the limits of sops to a graded index with respect to the economic growth of the country and the tax payers contribution in this regard. A taxpayer of this country cannot be taken for a ride in this respect. It is needed for posterity and for the coming generations of this country to save brain drain. Similarly some index of ratio has to be generalized for the reservation of various castes, when recently a state of India broke the record for vote bank politics of making caste reservations to cross even 75 percent, when the highest court of this country had pegged it up to 50 percent only. If such attempts of these unscrupulous dynastic politicians, for acquiring power are not given a break as per the constitution of our country, it may lead to a complete chaos and rivalry, amongst the various citizens of this country. Equally if this I.N.D.I Alliance finds a place to govern India by mistake, they will sow sop culture and caste culture taking India back to feudal set up of governance, it will make the people of India slaves of poverty and hunger, apart from divesting the young Indians from their right to education and self development for want of sufficient resources and finances. The right thinking people of India shall have to give it a due thought for posterity.
(The author is a chartered consultant civil engineer, passionately attached and devoted to his mother land-Jammu & Kashmir).
