Soliloquy

After having pushed the state’s fiscal health almost to the brink of bankruptcy, the Congress government seems keen on making the taxpayer reel just a little bit more. The overtures made towards farmers only days after the waiving of loans of more than INR 6 crore seem detestable especially as little goes in the way of making the latter happy.

The loan waiver scheme seems to have caught everyone in the state machinery unawares, as did Finance Minister Bhatti Vikramarka with his virtual gifting of over INR 49,383 crore for agriculture and INR 22,301 crore for irrigation in the budget. The question bound to form at the top of every able-minded citizen is this: where are these funds coming from?

It is no secret that the state’s financial health is in tatters, having been brought to its knees by the mindless spending on welfare schemes by the previous BRS government and then pushed further by current chief minister Revanth Reddy’s frivolous – and often needless – spending on people-pleasing ruses.

The tactless use of the state’s coffers for political benefits by both governments is contemptible, but not one that voters cannot see through. Such gimmicks seldom work out well in the long run, and the Revanth Reddy government’s single-minded intention to bring the once-profitable TSRTC (or TGSRTCS, as he likes to call it) to its knees is a good example. Where are the funds to provide free trips for half of the population?

Welfare schemes rarely succeed in making a people hospitable to crisis and feed, instead, upon their insecurities of having failed to derive any sort of social usefulness from living a dignified life. Freebies may surely be the one-shot way to gain electoral advantage, but they are, by no means, the manner to uplift the poverty-stricken and disadvantaged classes.

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