Whatever the economic Implications of the 2024-25 Union Budget, there is no denying that it exposed the poverty of political thought of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. By announcing with so much pomp and showing the generous allocation to Andhra Pradesh and Bihar within 50 days of the Lok Sabha election result the Narendra Modi government made it public to the world that it is hanging by a thread called Telugu Desam Party-cum-Janata Dal (United).
Had the Budget made a huge pronouncement about the poll-bound Maharashtra, Haryana, and Jharkhand it would have been understandable as the National Democratic Alliance performed below the bar in these states in the recently held elections.
How Andhra Pradesh and Bihar have managed to grab excessive attention in the Budget lays bare the fact that the two regional outfits are in the NDA only because of these allocations. Otherwise, they would dump the BJP and leave it in the lurch.
The fear psychosis in which the BJP leadership is living after the election results reveals their inherent weakness.
Making so much noise about giving funds to Bihar is something intriguing. After all Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has been in the NDA since July 26, 2017—barring 17 months between August 9, 2022, and January 28, 2024. So, by allocating development funds of around Rs 60,000 crore the Union government has made it amply clear that the move has more to do with politics than economics. After all, the 12 MPs of Janata Dal (United) may not be able to harm the BJP much if they once again ditch the NDA.
Anyway, the wag has it that since old habits die hard Nitish still can change sides in the future after taking all the money. But this time there is a lurking fear of his MPs deserting him and joining the BJP, if he takes another U-turn.
But since there is competition between Andhra Pradesh and Bihar the BJP was in a fix as it could not ignore one.
Andhra Pradesh’s case
Even in the case of Andhra Pradesh, the outgoing YSR Congress had bailed out the NDA in Rajya Sabha on the passage of several important Bills and was almost working as an ally of the BJP. In the Lok Sabha, it had no scope to support the ruling party as the latter was in itself in the majority.
The BJP top brass is so panicky as if it has no trust in the Telugu Desam Party and its ally Jana Sena, which have 16 and three MPs respectively. By yielding to all the demands so quickly the saffron party has given more opportunity to the two regional satraps of Andhra Pradesh and Bihar, Chandrababu Naidu and Nitish Kumar to twist its arm or put bluntly blackmail it. Is it not a fact that the demand for developing Amravati as the capital city is an old one, that is since the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh in 2014.
Naidu was the chief minister between 2014 and 2019. He, of course, has the experience of extracting extra pounds of flesh from the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government between 1998 and 2004.
Had Nirmala Sitharaman left a big announcement for Bihar for next year it would have been better as the state goes to poll in October-November 2025.
Fooling the citizens
The Budget said that a highway would be built between Patna and Purnia when the fact is that these two cities are already very well connected: one through National Highway-31. The second one is the East-West Corridor which came up early this century. So where is the
need for other highways and that too through the flood-prone region of North Bihar. The Budget does not mention whether it would be a Greenfield or brownfield project. The finance minister also said that the Buxar-Bhagalpur Highway would be built.
In the name of infrastructure development, various governments have gone on construction overdrive. They are fooling the citizens that they are employing big time by building roads and bridges. The fact is otherwise. They are snatching the livelihood of millions of citizens and rendering them homeless. Undertaking brownfield projects with a humane approach, in which the existing roads are either widened or improved, may be understandable, though here too houses and business establishments are removed. However, going for Greenfield projects is more costly as a huge amount of land is acquired, and people
displaced in a much bigger way. Those who have the right political and administrative connections are duly compensated while others have to run from the pillar to post.
Apart from homes, the government gives money to shops, restaurants, hotels, or other establishments, but there is no guarantee of getting a new venue at a suitable place so that the business once again flourishes. Small entrepreneurs and even footpath vendors are the worst sufferers.
The examples of Ayodhya and Banaras are very vivid. The BJP lost the Ayodhya seat as it rendered thousands of their supporters jobless and in some cases even homeless, yet it is patting on the back that it had done great development work.
Similarly, there was widespread protest in Tamil Nadu over the massive infrastructure projects. In one instance, the Madras High Court had on April 8, 2019, quashed the 277 km Chennai-Salem Highway on the plea that it does not fulfill the established environmental criteria. The villagers had moved the court because agriculture and forest land had been acquired under the Bharat Mala Project of the Centre. For them, money is no compensation. They were of the view that there is no further need of roads as there already exists two other highways linking Chennai and Salem.
However, the Supreme Court later overturned the Madras High Court ruling.
Toll tax
In Bihar, infrastructure development works have been undertaken ever since Nitish Kumar took over on November 24, 2005. Initially, some of the projects launched by his state government and the then UPA government were appreciated. But soon the people started feeling the pinch. The politician-engineer-contractor nexus started taking its toll.
The people are fed up with this pattern of development in which 18 bridges have collapsed in one month. None else but a senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Nikhil Anand Tweeted: “I am afraid of crossing through any Flyover and Bridge in Bihar. Surprise that in the last 10 days, half a dozen bridges have collapsed. A serious probe and
auditing is needed. The responsibility is fixed on the construction companies, blacklisting them. The engineers must be booked (sic)”
This tweet of a ruling party functionary was from the first week of July and since then several more bridges have caved in.
Toll tax, a relatively new concept introduced in India, is proving too costly even for the well-to-do people. Take the example of Patna-Purnia road travel by car. If one goes by NH-31 one has to pay around Rs 350-400 and if one takes East-West Corridor the amount is more than double, that is something around Rs 800 for a distance of 400 km. The people do not need the third Patna-Purnia Highway as announced in the Budget. The toll tax on that road may be over Rs 1,000.
The cost of construction-driven development especially in Bihar has been enormous. The entire administrative machinery in the state has collapsed like bridges throughout the state. The NEET paper leakage is an example of a series of such ‘developments’. Not to speak of rampant crime.
There are enough roads and bridges, just maintain them.
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