The Hindu Business Line : NCP-Cong Govt has little to show as achievements

In urban areas the problems are those of unemployment, a failure to meet increasing infrastructure demands, and in Mumbai specifically, matters pertaining to real estate and land use.

In rural areas the two issues underpinning all problems are the lack of water and lack of work, especially for landless labourers. In its five-year term the Congress-Nationalist Congres Party led Democratic Front (DF) Government has done little to rectify the very issues that it accused the previous Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party government of neglecting.

At the top of the list is the huge financial debt of the State. At the end of the fiscal year this stood at about Rs 1.11 lakh crore, but the State is believed to now be on a recovery path. The alarming monetary situation has consistently been used by the Government as an excuse for its other failures especially the worsening drinking water problem, drought and concomitant issues in agriculture, health issues especially in tribal areas, and the need for equitable distribution of regional resources.

In its last days in the State the DF Government intensely wooed the Mumbai voter. Mumbai is important for many reasons for any party. Its dominating economic importance is, of course, the main reason but psychological reasons play no less a part.

At the top of the list to draw in Mumbai's votes is a plan that is a real estate developers dream - the 100 acres of land that once housed a thriving textile industry in Mumbai has been eyed by developers for over three decades. A contentious matter, since it involves socio-economic and cultural issues, the government has always been cautious when it came to policy decisions regarding mill lands.

A couple of weeks before declaring the election dates the DF government gave the green signal to allow the National Textile Mills to develop about 80 acres with private participation. Quick clearance was also given to the Sahara Group to build a 150-acre `film city'. The project is controversial since the Sahara scheme will neighbour the existing government owned film city that has of late been inadequately promoted.

Knowing that real estate is the heartbeat of Mumbai the government has slashed property taxes by 80 per cent on the 20,000 or so dilapidated buildings ostensibly to encourage reconstruction and help solve the housing crisis in the city.

The more insidious aspect of the plan is its political agenda. By reducing the property tax the revenue received by the Sena-controlled municipal corporation will drop, thereby giving the Congress-NCP a convenient stick to beat the opposition with during the polls.

The builders lobby has been celebrating a decision of the DF government that was issued just three days before the election code of conduct came into force. After a decade of existence the government has banned the construction of extra floors on old buildings. While this hits individual landlords it has delighted builders who had seen this activity as one that cut into their profits.

Sops have also been dished out to the rest of the state. The most obviously political of these is the bailout plan for 50 cooperative sugar factories that have consistently been incurring losses. The majority are owned by NCP leaders.

Free power to farmers is another contentious issue but one that no party is willing to challenge publicly at this moment. About 23 lakh farmers stand to benefit from the proposal but the State will have to find some means of paying the bill of Rs. 1,500 crore that its generosity will incur.

The proposal to write off about Rs 100 crore as interest on loans taken by farmers was something of an election campaign coup by the DF government.

But hopes of cashing in farmers votes were dashed by the chief electoral officer of the State, who issued a stay on the proposal.

Even though the decision to implement the waiver had been made prior to the announcement of the election dates the resolution to implement it was done after the announcement.

This constituted a violation of the election code of conduct.

The other proposal designed to lure the rural vote was a hike in wages of village constables. The BJP has objected to this being a valid poll promise saying it too violates the code of conduct.

When the State Budget was presented on May 27 by the Democratic Front Government, it was expected that it would deal with these issues so as to ensure that the Congress and its allies made a comeback in the upcoming Vidhan Sabha elections and not suffer the setback they did in the Lok Sabha elections in the State.

But the State Budget sidestepped the real issues thereby leaving the DF Government vulnerable in the coming elections.

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