Does the Real India needs colour TVs or the basic needs?

Recent poll promises made by few political parties like TDP and PRP reminds me of 2Rs - kg rice scheme brought in by one of my favorite leaders NTR. I still remember the way NTR reached masses with rice scheme. During that time, poverty and hunger were one of the major concerns of the society. It was very difficult for most of the villagers even to get a square meal per day. I remember a section of media very well supporting it saying this is a welfare scheme for poor and another section of media talking against it saying that it is against the developmental economy. However, nothing could stop NTR going to people with this scheme few more welfare schemes and convincing the electorate. NTR won with a bumper majority leaving congress and the English media to a surprise.

Probably, the NTR's successful rice scheme has started inspiring political parties to bank on populism to gain power. If nothing works, political parties believe in popular schemes. We have seen DMK promising colour TVs in the previous elections and coming into power. In the elections that were held 3 months back in Chattisgarh, BJP won the elections promising Rs 1 per Kg Rice scheme. In 2004 assembly elections in AP, YSR Reddy promised free electricity to farmers and came to power. And now, Babu once known for his hitech measures, promises free distribution of money to people which is described as Cash Transfer Scheme (CTS) by one of my friends. Today, i heard that Chiru also promised free distribution of money in some other form. I am not sure of it though. I have to go through his manifesto.

Most of the times, parties with populist schemes are coming into power. That brings back me to ponder over two questions. 1. Does this mean that parties are catering to the need of the voter? 2. Does this help the country in the long term? Let me take colour TV scheme as an example and see if a common man requires a colour TV or he requires a computer and good education for his child, health facilities for his family, water for his paddy fields? My intuition says that the common will say that he wants basic needs in place of TV. But then, why has he been voting for these schemes? Common man wants something that’s tangible to feel good to caste his vote to a party. It becomes difficult for him to visualize schemes that facilitate long term development. Therefore, he prefers popular schemes to developmental schemes.

Therefore, I ask the political parties if this is not like taking advantage of the plight of the common man to force him to vote for them. Isn’t it an abuse on the poor people? Doesn’t the money distribution makes people lazy and unproductive and isn’t it detrimental to long term progress. It’s the time for people need to judge these gimmicks. I was calculating the other day the amount that Babu has to spend on CTS. If we consider 6 crores as AP population that is either in middle class or below middle class. On an average if we take 6 members a family and on an average if we consider Rs 2000 distributed to 1 crore families per month, in 5 years Babu would spend Rs 1.2 Lakh Crores. If he spends such a huge amount from state ex-chequer, can he spend any amount in developing infrastructure and in providing basic needs to poor? Parties and people need to understand that NTRs rice scheme is different from Karunanidhis colour TV scheme and Babu's CTS scheme. One provides the basic need while the other offers a temporary want/luxury to common man and abuses him. People should strongly question such populist schemes and shouldn't get diverted from main issues in the elections by getting trapped by these populist schemes.