The good, bad and ugly of Bommai’s Budget

Shyam Sundar Vattam | NT

The Budget is considered a sacred document encompassing the vision of the government but Friday’s presentation by CM Bommai seems to have been tailormade keeping in mind the BBMP polls and the 2023 Assembly polls. There are no hikes in taxes or fuel prices but there are mega doleouts for projects and communities and even a huge allocation for a drinking water project which the Opposition Congress had made a tool to target the BJP government.

The budget should indicate how sound the economy of any state or nation is. Every citizen has a right to know how the taxes paid by him/her are spent. Unfortunately, over the years, the document has become a tool in the hands of political parties to grab votes and Bommai’s Budget is no different. Even pre-budget consultations with various trade bodies, individuals, organisations and citizens have become a farcical exercise. Most governments have a pre-conceived plan on the proposals and projects to be included rather than making a realistic assessment of the state’s needs and trying to infuse funds and draw up plans which can further the cause of development.

The sense of frustration with the government’s fiscal management is more than evident with the cost of living spiralling, jobs not forthcoming and business volumes shrinking. There were days when people sat before radio and television sets to eagerly watch the presentation of the budget by the union government or state governments but not anymore.

“Stretch your legs till the length of the bed”, is a popular saying in Kannada which talks of financial discipline in easily understandable terms. No government cares about it and inevitably leaves behind a huge debt for the next government to grapple with. The strategy of any ruling party is to announce the maximum number of populist schemes in its last budget no matter whether it will return to power or not.

This leads to the debt burden going up and the interest the state has to pay growing steadily leading to a vicious circle leaving precious little resources for schemes which need them most.

Even before Bommai stood up to present his maiden budget, most people knew it was going to be a please all Budget with elections coming up in just a year from now. The priority which should have been accorded to most backward areas by allocating more funds to bring them to the mainstream, was sorrily missing.

Healthcare and education as everyone knows, should top the priority list of any government. Till recently, these two core sectors had taken the backseat and it was only after the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic that we realised how pathetic our health infrastructure was. Proposals have been made for Namma Clinics and superspeciality hospitals besides those for ramping up facilities at district hospitals, taluk hospitals and primary health centers. Likewise, the field of education has received its due with a proposal for Karnataka Institutes of Technology.

No social audit
But one cannot avoid a troubling question at this stage. Thousands of crores are allocated, released and supposed to be spent on projects but are they subjected to any kind of social audit? The government is supposed to believe the figures furnished by each department on the money spent on projects. In fact the Public Works Department was opposed to any third party inspection maybe fearing exposure of the sub-standard works carried out by contractors. So no one knows how hundreds of crores released by the government are spent due to the absence of checks and balances.

More on populist projects, less on priority works In a bid to retain power, the Bommai government has announced a slew of programmes which if implemented, will do a lot of good to the living standards of people in several segments. The schemes look good on paper but will they ever be implemented? Has a time frame been set for implementation and will the funds set aside for them, be enough? There is talk of cold storage facilities in every budget to help farmers store perishable items till they get remunerative prices. If that had been the case, why would farmer dump tomatoes on roads or bulldoze fruits and vegetables ready for harvesting due to crash in prices? Cold storages are functioning well in the private sector for a price of course but why not in the government sector? It’s a million dollar question.

The CM has once again made the mistake of distributing funds piece-meal for various ongoing irrigation projects like UKP 3rd stage and Upper Bhadra and Rs 7,000 crore for three projects which have lingered for too long like Yettinahole, Kalasa Banduri and Mekedatu. While the Yettinahole project is progressing at a snail’s pace eating up massive funds, Kalasa Banduri is caught in a legal wrangle and Mekedatu is still in a preliminary stage with