Starting Trouble for Gehlot
The new chief minister needs an estimated Rs 18,000 crore to fulfil his promise of waiving farm loans
Ashok Gehlot’s biggest challenge as Rajasthan chief minister is to fund his promised waiver of farmer loans. Expected to benefit some four million families, the waiver will cost an estimated
Rs 18,000 crore and could prove to be a game-changer for the Congress in the forthcoming Lok Sabha election.
But financing it won’t be easy, given that Rajasthan’s debt, according to Gehlot, soared from Rs 1.29 lakh crore to Rs 3 lakh crore during Vasundhara Raje’s tenure. Besides constituting a committee of ministers to work out the modalities of the waiver, Gehlot has picked Niranjan Kumar Arya, an officer with a reputation for innovation, as his finance secretary.
Amid reports of farm loan payouts to fraudulent beneficiaries during the BJP regime, Gehlot and his team need to be vigilant that the loan waiver benefits the right people.
Besides preparing to roll out the waiver, Gehlot’s administration is working overtime to revive schemes from his previous tenure that were scuttled by the Raje government. He is also focusing on strengthening the supply of free medicines in dispensaries and hospitals, speeding up the Barmer refinery and Jaipur Metro projects and disbursing higher oldage pensions. In another significant decision, Gehlot has abolished the mandatory educational qualification for candidates contesting panchayat and urban local body elections.
Gehlot has also promised to legislate a ‘right to health’ law, on the lines of the Rajasthan Right to Information Act and the Rajasthan Guaranteed Delivery of Public Services Act from his previous terms.
Analysts say Gehlot’s other big challenge will be to take along deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot. Known to cut rivals to size, there is already speculation over how the chief minister will handle his deputy. That Pilot was denied key portfolios (finance and home) has not gone unnoticed.
For his part, Pilot shrugs off queries about his relationship with Gehlot. “Our effort is to make Rahul Gandhi the prime minister, for which we must deliver 22 seats from Rajasthan,” he says.
THE STATE’S DEBT, SAYS THE CM, SHOT UP TO Rs 3 LAKH CRORE UNDER THE RAJE GOVERNMENT