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Freebies and CJI N V Ramana

By Mohan Guruswamy

CJI N V Ramana on Thursday acknowledged that the impact of freebies promised by political parties on the country’s fiscal health was “a serious issue” but said he was not in favour of derecognising any party over it because that would be “anti-democratic”.

I think the CJI is on loose ground here. What is a freebie? Is education a freebie? In these days of distance learning is a laptop a freebie? Is giving farmers free power a freebie? Is subsidised rice or wheat a freebie? 

There are merited subsidies and unmerited subsidies. Economists classify them this way because free  or subsidised healthcare and education contributes to the national good in economic and social terms.

But giving a retired president or prime minister a paid for existence in a government house is certainly a freebie and the most unmerited of subsidies. Is 100% MSP procurement of paddy and wheat in Punjab a merited subsidy when it is denied to other states? Is subsidised milk or foodstuffs fine for urban people, when rural people don’t get such benefits?

We can even classify unmerited expenditures and merited expenditures. An ambulance ferrying passengers from remote areas to well equipped hospitals is a merited expenditure. But having two lavishly appointed giant jets together costing almost ₹9000 crores, and sitting idol most of the time a merited expenditure? 
 
I think we can have a meaningful discussion to list merited and unmerited expenditures. But the system may not like it. What we might want to consider is to cap the subsidies to a certain level of the GDP or budget. We can’t have subsidies eating away at capital expenditures for the common good. But we can cap capital expenditures for vanity projects like  a new secretariat or PM house. 

Is the writing off of about ₹10L Crs of corporate debt to PSU banks merited or an interested write off? Is having millions of cases piled up in the court system because the judicial system is under provided for in public interest? Sir please give a thought to this. Is it merited or unmerited.  

Think about it Mr.CJI. You are treading on a subject that few are willing to discuss and even fewer might be willing to implement!

Source: https://www.facebook.com/1500196238/posts/10222594365076738/?flite=scwspnss&mibextid=8zPu1hDEvIDGMfmn

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