So I feel Jairam Thakur, the incumbent Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh has done no service to the people of the state by holding a grand function at the sinking Ridge to celebrate his two-year in power. If, at all, it had to celebrate, the function should have been billed as party event or financed by ministers (including CM) and lawmakers. After all they get fat salary and perks for serving people. By all means, why should public hard-earned money be wasted on extravaganzas. Earlier, his oath taking ceremony held at historic Ridge and attended by Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, several Union Ministers and Chief Ministers of BJP-ruled states had cost the state exchequer a whopping amount. If good sense ever prevails on our publicity hunger leaders, then money wasted on such functions should be saved and spend on the welfare of poorest.
One can justify the Investors Meet at Dharamsala, held in first week of November as it brought some investment, but an grand event to celebrate two-years of a govt in power with big advertisements in media is just a sheer wastage of public money, for it brings hardly any benefit to the people.
Two years of a popular mandate is not a short period. By this time the tangible benefits of government's policies and programs should be clearly visible. But two years of Jairam Thakur's rule haven't brought any perceptible change in the life of people. I asked BJP ardent supporters to list some concrete achievements of Jairam Thakur govt but none could point out a single one. The cryptic stock reply is that this govt is better than Congress govt. And for Congress supporters, its worst than Virbhadra Singh govt.
There can't be any drastic change as long same govt apparatus and machinery is at the helms of the affairs. A cosmic change at the top can hardly bring fast results. So except that Virbhadra Singh and co are out and Jairam Thakur and co are in, nothing has changed. Corruption is there and so is red tapism. Babus continue to serve as masters not as public servants. The heavy bureaucracy and high cost of severance continue to burden the scare resources of the state. No change in govt's royal style of functioning is visible . Every successive govt is putting huge additional financial burden on state exchequer. With no additional source of income, Jairam Thakur govt has also relied heavily on borrowing. Earlier BJP used to curse Congress govt for this and now Congress is blaming Jairam Thakur for the wrong doings it had committed while in power.
Its a very sad state of affairs. The biggest challenge before Jairam Thakur govt or for that matter any govt is "how to cut its coat to suit the cloth". No family, institution, state or nation can survive for long on borrowings. There is a limit to it. State has already reached the danger line with debt crossing 50,000 crore and its interest and pensions liabilities increasing year by year. The uncovered budget deficit has reached 7500 crore.The time is not far off when govt will find it difficult even to serve the interests on debt.
What is worrisome is that our leadership is not concerned over the day-by-day deteriorating financial health of the state. There is an urgent need to downsize bureaucracy and govt sectors. The financial position of the state doesn't allow high cost of governance. At the same time, govt will have to generate adequate employment avenues. For this, our technical courses should be tailor made to the employment generation. All wasteful expenditure like political appointments in state-owned undertakings have to be shunned. Such appointments including Chief Whip have added more burden on state limited finance resources. Big question is : Can Jairam Thakur do it in next three years?
(Chander Sharma)
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