FROM THE
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
E
xactly a year from today, a new govern-
ment will be in place in New Delhi, and
the inaugural session of the 17th Lok
Sabha will be under way. A year might
seem like a long time, but not for the Narendra
Modi-Amit Shah duo who have changed the
rules of the electoral game quite in the way
T-20 has done in cricket. I don’t recall any
other government that has been so proactive in
launching reforms or schemes. Not all of them
have worked out as intended, but in the last four
years there has been a relentless effort to bring
about change. There is also a method in the
madness where most schemes are connected to
each other. The massive drive to open Jan Dhan
accounts, for example, was linked to the direct
benefit transfers that plugged all illegal leakage.
The push for skilling was connected with the
Make in India campaign. Even demonetisation
was preceded by many schemes for people to
declare their black money. For making these at-
tempts, the Modi government deserves kudos.
We have ranked the Modi government
every year since 2014. Our current issue,
the last annual assessment before the 2019
general elections, analyses the achievements
of this government over the past four years.
What we have discovered is that there have
been tremendous achievements, on some very
important fronts—infrastructure, economy
and foreign relations. If there is anything that
will save this government, it is the pace of
construction of roads, development of ports
and waterways. It has kickstarted projects
held up for years and provided much-needed
employment. The economy grew at an average
of 7.3 per cent over the past four years with an
inflation rate of 3.6 per cent last fiscal. The hid-
den NPAs of banks that have been festering for
years have been brought out into the open. New
legislation, such as the Insolvency and Bank-
ruptcy Code, has made it easier for indebted
firms to be sold. Direct benefit transfers to
the needy have been a great success. Corrup-
tion at top levels in the government is virtually
unheard of and the expansion of the income
tax-paying base can only be good news.
However, there are glaring lapses in several
other areas. The government’s Make in India
mission to boost domestic manufacturing and
spur job creation has not taken off. Although
there is a dispute about employment figures,
you cannot have an economy growing at 6.6
per cent and no new jobs. Foreign investment
proposals dropped to Rs 8 lakh crore last
year, more than half of what they had been in
the preceding two years. Exports fell 3.7 per
cent every year from 2015 onwards, with the
manufacturing sector still reeling under the af-
tershocks of demonetisation and the transition
to the Goods and Services Tax (GST) while in-
dustrial production slowed to a five-month low
of 4.4 per cent in March this year. In the social
sector, too, it fares poorly, with no sign of the
new education policy or any serious attempts to
upgrade the quality of education. The National
Health Protection Scheme, set to be rolled out
later this year, could be a game-changer in the
health sector, though.
The Modi government’s campaign pitch for
Election 2019, launched on its fourth anniver-
sary, is ‘Saaf Niyat, Sahi Vikas’—good inten-
tion and right development. A clever slogan
that makes up for any shortfall in expectations.
These are the twin planks on which the BJP has
positioned itself as the party with a difference
ahead of 2019. Fear s of the government taking
a right turn and appealing to narrow parochial
and religious considerations seem unfounded
for now. Development, the plank on which the
Modi government swept to power in 2014, with
the first majority in three decades, still seems to
be front and centre on its agenda.
Going by their new slogan, the govern-
ment cannot be faulted on good intentions. But
governance is never just about good intentions.
It is about delivery. And what we’ve seen is that
many of the well-intentioned schemes failed
because of a slothful bureaucracy and the poor
bench strength of the Modi cabinet. Four years
later, these unreformed areas continue to be a
drag on the government, impacting the perfor-
mance of its key electoral promises. I have now
given up hope that this government will deliver
on its election promise of ‘minimum govern-
ment, maximum governance’. We are now re-
signed to living under a regime that is over-reli-
ant on a bloated public sector and bureaucracy,
combined with what I call Swadeshi Socialism.
Despite these and the recent shock of high oil
prices, the economy is projected to grow at over
7 per cent, the highest for a large economy.
This, as it heads into an election year
where it is very likely to face a united opposi-
tion, but one which has yet to come up with
a coherent alternative narrative to the one
offered by Modi. There is talk of the govern-
ment hoping to win on the TINA—There Is
No Alternative—factor, but that would be
unfortunate indeed. Governments need to
win elections on the strength of their achieve-
ments, not because there is no alternative.
June 1, 2015
May 23, 2016
May 29, 2017
(Aroon Purie)
J U N E 1 1 , 2 018
INDIA TODAY
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