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India
writes $15 billion cheque to save Sonia’s UPA from committing
suicides
But what does Punjab gain from it? Majority of Punjab farmers are
Sikhs, and have a better record of repaying loans. Will this poll
year sop help?
WSN Bureau
NEW DELHI/CHANDIGARH:
For four
years, the image of
India spun out
by the Sonia Gandhi-Manmohan Singh led, Leftnudged and SEZ-business-industry-friendly
UPA government was one of of upcoming swank malls, swankier cars and
cool cash. But the problem is that every five year come the
elections. For four years, it was considered okay to do nothing as
thousands of farmers committed suicide due to the simple reason of
extreme poverty.
 But before
rushing into elections, the UPA thought it fit to strike with a
big-bang 60,000 crore-rupee debt relief for farmers. In the perverse
way in which Indian politics and political debate works, even sober
media publications identify the Finance Minister overly with the
Budget as if it is the baby of only one ministry. So, P.
Chidambaram. got much credit for the please-all package that saved
salaried classes thousands of rupees in taxes, promised to make
growth more inclusive and aimed to boost consumption with a wide
array of duty cuts so that the economy’s momentum remains intact.
People may have
been the last to know it, but in the power corridors, everyone knew.
Several state units of ruling parties had begun work to hardsell it
in an election year. In
Punjab,
Akalis wanted to pre-empt the credit mongering and held a rally
virtually hours before the budget, demanding farm loan waivers. The
TDP in Andhra Pradesh and the Shiv Sena in
Maharashtra
held roads hows demanding the waiver and assuring farmers that they
would extract it from the Centre. Within minutes of the FM ending
his budget speech, hordes of farmers had reached Sonia andhi’s
residence and hoardings thanking her for karza mukti had gone up.
A week before
the Budget, Sonia spent over two hours with farmers from Rajasthan,
Haryana, and Maharashtra. A farmer delegation from Punjab met PM
Manmohan Singh and Sonia on the first day of Budget session. And the
PMO issued a press release attacking the Akali Dal, which had
planned a farmers rally in the capital the next day: Clearly, too
many knew that a big cheque was coming for farmers, and were rushing
to the vote banks to encash it. Sukhbir with his Delhi’s Insaaf
Rally was doing exactly what Punjab Congress chief Rajinder Kaur
Bhattal was doing. The Indian Express reported how she “personally
rang up newspaper offices to request good media coverage to a
delegation led by her (since) a ‘major’ announcement for farmers was
in the offing, credit for which should go to the Congress.” And
this, almost a week before the Budget. How many farmers in Punjab
will benefit from the budget’s waiver plan remains a rather tedious
issue. Punjab Chief Secretary Ramesh Inder Singh said it is likely
to benefit 70 per cent of the total debt-ridden farmers in Punjab
even as the government was still working out the details of the
waiver and its impact on the state. Punjab farmers owe Rs 586 crore
short and long term loans to cooperative banks and are likely to
benefit.
 But who will
certainly not get any benefit is the question that rankles serious
students of Punjab’s economy and agriculture. Any one who has taken
loans from private money lenders or arhtiyas will not get a penny of
the Rs 60,000 crore hand out. The loan has been waived for under the
below five-acre landholding category. On the other hand, Punjab
Mandi Board Chairman Ajmer Singh Lakhowal has said only 29 per cent
of farmers in Punjab would benefit from farm loan waiver as only 29
per cent of farmers in the state have five acres land. Some 64 per
cent have land holdings between five and 15 acres, while 7 per cent
are big farmers. How the Punjab Chief secretary reached his 70 per
cent figure remains a mystery.
The middle class
of course had every reason to be happy; after all it is this one
class that the entire Indian establishment, be it the UPA, the NDA
or its sundry avtaars, have been wooing for nearly two decades now.
So, the salaried class, beginning this April, will carry home more
money, because Chidambaram has rejigged the personal income tax
slabs in a manner that cuts its annual tax liability by between Rs
4,000 and Rs 55,000, depending on how much one earns and where one
saves. More good news if one works for the government: the Sixth Pay
Commission will give its report by March 31, and Chidambaram was
confident it would meet the expectations of millions of central
government employees.
5
March 2008
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