Hyderabad:
Andhra Pradesh’s ruling YSR parliament has submitted an affidavit to the Supreme Court, asking to participate in proceedings in a case regarding the distribution of “freebies”. The petition says that an elected government is responsible for implementing plans to reduce poverty and provide people with better health care, education and employment opportunities. While such expenditure is generally classified as a revenue expenditure, it has a lasting impact on wealth creation and improving quality of life, the YSR Congress argued.
The bounty debate reached the Supreme Court with a petition by the BJP’s Ashwini Upadhyay, which challenged the promise of a free bounty amount at election time.
So far, Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party – known for providing free electricity and water in the states it governs – and Tamil Nadu’s ruling DMK have appealed to join the proceedings. In their petitions, both sides vehemently opposed the BJP leader’s stance.
The petition says that although in the current accounting system expenditures on education, health care, agriculture and poverty alleviation are recorded as revenue, it should not be viewed as “waste”.
Money spent on such social sectors has great potential to create and consolidate human capital and long-term assets of great socioeconomic significance.
The defense also cites economists such as Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer – recipients of the 2019 Sveriges Riskbank Prize in Economic Sciences in memory of Alfred Nobel.
In a series of research papers, these economists reported that government programs that project direct benefit transfers have achieved positive outcomes for education, health, the petition said.
The YSR Congress also claimed that the split of Andhra Pradesh and the subsequent rule of its rival political party had plunged the state into deep crisis.
Furthermore, the state’s share of central taxes in the particularly difficult 2020-21 year is only 29.35%, even though the Finance Committee No. 15 has recommended 41%.
The petition also cites a survey by NABARD All India Rural Finance from 2016-17, which found that 76% of rural farming families in the state are struggling with debt, compared to with the national average of 47%.
The petition also says elected governments should be able to make decisions about welfare programs.
