E-Paper
Sop story to worsen new CM?s headache
Managing a debt of more than Rs 95,000 crore that the state is already reeling under would be difficult, reports Sujata Anandan.
Two days before the Maharashtra election results were declared, Sharad Pawar had, at a meeting with Congress and NCP leaders, wished good luck to whoever became the chief minister. Reason : Pawar knew the CM’s post would be a "crown of thorns''.
Managing a debt of more than Rs 95,000 crore that the state is already reeling under would be difficult. To top it, the joint manifesto of the Congress-NCP combine has promised many freebies and sops. These include procurement price for cotton at Rs 27,000 per quintal when the market rate is Rs 18,000, free electricity, loans to poorer sections at six per cent interest, slum rehabilitation, and jobs (when most industries are either shut down or moving out of the state).
Could Maharashtra then go the Bihar way? "Maharashtra is already on the Bihar way,'' says former Maharashtra finance minister Ramrao Adik. Adik had warned Pawar that they would have to spend the next 15 years cleaning up the mess created by the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance.
And that is essentially what the Congress-NCP had been doing in the past five years, but now they have new problems as well. Adik feels the fiscal management of Maharashtra is going to be "not just enormous, but a stupendous task.'' But it can be done, he maintains, by taxing the rich to provide the sops to the poor. Says Adik: "I had taxed cigarettes in Maharashtra to raise resources. Someone who buys a few packets of the 555 brand a day can afford to pay an additional Rs 5 or Rs 10 on each pack. Something similar will have to be evolved.''
