Is Mamata Banerjee the best Chief Minister ever?
The damage that Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee has done in the last 11 years cannot be repaired in the next hundred years. She has made the major part of society beggars by constantly 'lying'. The mentality of the wealthy people also changed who do not need subsidy. Those who wear a saree worth thousands of rupees are also lining up to get their name listed in 'Lakshir Bhandar' or Lakshmi Bhandar where poor people will get financial monthly grants. By adding 'Sree', she is launching many schemes which looks good on paper but breeds corruption if detail analysis is done. Just like Partha Chatterjee-Arpita Mukherjee multi crore education scam is about taking money from primary teacher recruits, ‘Aikyashree’ is minority meritorious student scholarship but is just political tool for minority appeasement, ‘Yuvashree’ is monthly allowance to unemployed youth but it actually creates an army of TMC goons locally, ‘Kanyashree’ is education assistance for poor family girl child but local politicians misuse the scheme.
Bengal government welfare schemes are freebies with political corruption
One need to understand how the state have shot itself in the foot by putting corrupt goons or politicians at grassroots level. The future generation will have to bear the brunt of the Trinamool state government's unaccountable economic activities. Don't think that they are just stealing money from chit fund, stealing rice, stealing ration, stealing sand, stealing coal, stealing jobs etc. They are also stealing GSDP calculations. The state government is overstating the GSDP by stealing. The central government does not accept this account of the state government. This is happening every year. Higher the GSDP, the more borrowing can be done. GSDP is the market value of the total production (agriculture, industry, livestock) and services (banks, insurance, hotels, transport, hospitals, schools, colleges) of a state each year. The higher the GSDP, the higher the financial strength, the higher the debt repayment capacity and thus the more creditworthy state it is. There are certain methods of calculating this GSDP. Giving wrong information which central government no longer accept.
The fear is that the Bengal is heading towards neighbouring country Sri Lanka in June 2022 where there was Rs 500 per kilo of rice, a cup of tea was 100 Rs. Transport is at a standstill or minimal due to lack of fuel. 17/18 hours per day load shedding was common.
A bill was passed in the Bengal Legislative Assembly when Buddhadeb Bhattacharya of CPIM was Chief Minister called FRBM Act Amendment Bill. It says that state governments cannot borrow more than 3% of GDP in a financial year. In March 2022, the current state government brought a bill to amend the law. Now the government can borrow 5% of GDP instead of 3% (link attached).
When she started his innings in 2011 as CM, the accumulated debt of the state government in 64 years since 1947 was ₹1,82,387 crore. And in the next ten years it increased to ₹5,28,833 crore, this year it will exceed ₹5,62,000, the government announced in the Assembly. As per the three-monthly borrowings from the market, one estimate it to be ₹5,80,000 crore. The total loan for 64 years is ₹1,82,387 crore and in the next ten years he borrowed ₹3,46,446 crore in 11 years. The most worrying thing is, where this huge amount of money is invested like this; she has spent money in those sectors, from which no return will come i.e. no revenue will be collected like freebies given to Durga Puja clubs across the state, prominent football clubs of Koltata etc. Two Indian states have more debt than this but their GDP is much higher than Bengal. So, the situation is very dire.
Seeing the situation, no one agreed to be the state finance minister this time year 2021. The accounts were audited by senior politician Mukul Roy, who again became ill after the death of his wife. Meanwhile, the Chief Minister has announced that the salaries and pensions of government employees may be stopped in the coming days. The contractors are in trouble owing crores of rupees from various departments of the state government. When Sri Lanka crisis was at its peak, Mamata Banerjee said some Indian states finances are as bad as Sri Lanka where salaries can be impacted. Treasury is empty. All the projects created during her tenure had to be borrowed more and more to continue to finance them. So, the law is being changed, so the GDP is shown to be abnormally high. Future generations are at risk. So, one has to be worried.
Dictator didi makes people happy with populist schemes
The current West Bengal TMC government has inherited a mess from the communist misrule of 34 years. The finance minister for first 10 years of TMC, Amit Mitra, a highly qualified economist who drafted GST bill during UPA 2.0 era but UPA government failed to pass the bill in parliament. GST bill was passed by Modi government and finance minister Arun Jeitly got all the credit. Amit Mitra was roped in TMC party by Mamata Banerjee when she came to power in 2011 because of his economist background just like Dr. Manmohan Singh was made finance minister by PV Narasimha Rao as Dr. Singh worked in RBI, World Bank etc. Amit Mitra was former boss of India's main business lobby FICCI, tried his best to improve Bengal state revenue. Amit Mitra is maternal grandson of top freedom fighter Subhash Chandra Bose and her mother Bela Mitra was Azad Hind Fauj (INA) head of secret service. One also need to know his family background.
Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose's niece Bela Basu (Mitra) has another identity that may be unknown to many. She was married to the freedom fighter Haridas Mitra. She was a member of the intelligence department of the Azad Hind Fauj (INA). A very powerful transmitter was installed on the roof of the house at Bipin Pal Road in Calcutta evading the eyes of the British police and relaying information to INA when they were trying to enter the country from Imphal-Kohima route. Four Subhash followers were associated with the secret service of the Azad Hind Fauj but in the end the police caught four Subhash followers. Dr. Pabitra Mohan Roy, Amrik Singh Gill, Haridas Mitra and Jyotish Chandra Basu — all four were sentenced to death by British Judge Ormerod. The military trial began in May 1945. The whole process is completed within 30 days.
Although her husband was captured by the British police, Bella Mitra was still working for the secret forces of the Azad Hind Fauj with equal efficiency. For lack of money, she sold all her ornaments, but never shied away from her responsibilities for the Azad Hind Fauj. Bela Mitra decided to meet Gandhiji to save her husband's life. Despite initial reluctance, Gandhiji wrote one letter after another to the then Viceroy and finally, in March 1947, the British government revoked the death sentence of four revolutionaries in the secret service of the INA. In the same year, Jyotish Chandra and his wife Purabi took part in Gandhiji's march to riot hit Noakhali in east Bengal. Haridas Mitra later became the deputy speaker of the state legislative assembly. However, Bela Mitra never came into active parliamentary politics. Many decades later his son Amit Mitra became finance minister of TMC government in 2011.
Amit Mitra’s lamented at the mess in Bengal government. ‘No one knows where all the files are,’ he said, accusing the last communist government. He admitted that the state's finances are rotten and blamed previous communist administrative chaos and unpaid bills. Mr Mitra tried to raise tax revenues, while seeking debt forgiveness from the central government and both are difficult as both communists and TMC used to fight with central government all the time for all the small reasons. Reforming the bureaucracy is vital, too, amid claims that it is politicised but proved to be equally difficult. ‘They created a fascist structure while wearing the mask of democracy,’ Mitra said about the Communist Party of India (Marxist) that used to rule the state for 34 years.
Economist ex-finance minster Amit Mitra realised Mamata Banerjee’s core competence is appeasement politics
How much economic damage the communists really did is contested. State-level GSDP figures suggest a performance in line with India's average in recent decades. Supporters of the communists point to progress in agriculture and services. But foes mutter that the state-level GSDP statistics are assembled locally and of doubtful accuracy. And no one disputes that West Bengal has suffered deindustrialisation on a par with the likes of Detroit of USA. According to the central bank, the state accounted for a quarter of India's industrial capital stock in 1950. By 1960 it contributed 13% of manufacturing output, by 2000 just 7% and by 2020 it is mere 3.5%.
Other measures are just as dire. Bank lending is below the national average. Kolkata's population fell slightly over the past two decade, no mean achievement in a rapidly urbanising country. Only one big non-state firm is based there (Tata Steel), after an exodus that began in the 1960s. Most pitifully of all, West Bengal has received less than 2% of the foreign direct investment that poured into India over the past two decade. The prime culprits for industrial decline are the politicisation of land tenure, which makes it hard for firms to get space, and dreadful industrial relations. West Bengal has a lexicon of strife, with goons who flex political muscles on the streets and widespread gheraos (taking bosses hostage) and bandhs (general strikes).
Complicating things, however, is the ambiguous attitude towards business of TMC party. In 2008 she led the opposition to Tata building a big car factory in rural West Bengal, arguing that farmers were being exploited. Tata moved the factory to Gujarat, a booming western state, leaving, as an entrepreneur puts it, ‘a very heavy hangover’. In late 2011 Mamata Banerjee failed to support both the central government's plans to let foreign supermarkets into India and its latest attempt to pass an anti-corruption bill. Some worry that her relations with Congress have become so dire that her own Trinamool party may leave the coalition.
Local business people also fret about too charismatic dictatorial style of Mamata Banerjee leadership. Most entrepreneurs feel her government is dangerously populist, with “no ideology, no vision and only extraction (called tolabazi).” If the government cannot convince local business people, it has little hope of wooing capital from elsewhere, especially when other states, led by Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka etc. have well-oiled machines for attracting money and talent. Amit Mitra didn’t fight 2021 Bengal state election on health ground and current Bengal government is missing his presence. The hope is that Mamata Banerjee government after wasting a decade, will soon find its feet and turn its attention to reintegrating Kolkata into a global economy that it was once. The fear is that inaction combined with her popularity in the countryside will condemn the Kolkata city and business to yet another decade as India's capital of stagnation.
Future generations will face the heat just like Sri Lanka debt crisis
Bengal had good leadership 1920-1967 period but today’s leadership is pure deadwoods. Naxalite violent movement and subsequent communist rule ruined the state. TMC is equally corrupt new breed of violent naxals who is ruling the state like Taliban. Hence, future is uncertain. If PM Mahinda Rajapaksha of Sri Lanka can escape from the island, Mamata Banerjee’s time may come soon.
Picture source: Google
https://finance.wb.gov.in/writereaddata/WB%20FRBM%20(Amendment)%20Act,%202022.pdf
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