On road to ruin

Winning an election by making promises the Congress knew in advance it could not keep has its own pitfalls. No one knows this today better than Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, who every alternate week rushes to Delhi to call on his one-time political rival to plead for help, some aid, some bailout, even a permission to borrow more. It is a situation the Congress has created for itself. Instead of drawing right lessons from the mess the Akalis left in Punjab, the Congress has emulated them and followed their politics of freebies which has bankrupted the treasury and saddled the state with an unsustainable debt.

The desperation to please everyone for votes has led to the deepening of discontent all-round. On Monday farmer fury erupted on Punjab roads. Their demands are familiar: payment of sugarcane arrears, remunerative procurement prices, compensation for not burning paddy straw and a loan waiver. Politics of appeasement may yield short-term gains, but it also garners long-term serious consequences. Punjab is paying for it. Debt write-offs in UP and Rajasthan have put pressure on Punjab leaders and added to farmers’ anger. The 2016-17 Economic Survey-2 stresses that a debt waiver slows down growth since money gets diverted from development. In Punjab’s case the diversion is officially estimated at Rs 24,000 crore for a scaled-down loan waiver. The Punjab growth rate is already below the national average. This is a time when the economy needs a stimulus. Since farmers too insist on free power and debt relief, and the industrialists’ lobby has its own list of sops, the path ahead for Punjab is decidedly unpromising.  

While debt concession may be a political favour, the payment of sugarcane dues with interest as provided in the rules is a farmer’s legitimate right. No government can disregard this obligation. Courts can intervene since a contract has been dishonoured. According to information given in Parliament on July 28, 2017, Punjab owes Rs 127 crore to sugarcane growers. Of this, it seems, the sugarcane arrears of farmers in Gurdaspur district have been cleared. Reason: the byelection next month. Not just unfair but a dishonourable compromise with principles of good governance.