Anil Anand
The onset of New Year is always significant as the thought process in every individual as well as the governing system is pregnant with optimism and new hope, overcoming the failures and non-deliverance in the year gone by. The feelings would be no different as India enters the year 2022 with high hopes of overcoming the challenge of a third COVID-19 wave, and challenges on economic, social and political fronts.
However, 2022 as a yardstick or milestone is somewhat different on two counts- first historic as the country will be celebrating 75th year of the Independence, and secondly, and related in more than one ways, deadline set by Prime Minister, Mr Narendra Modi to achieve certain ambitious goals set by his Government to be achieved on the occasion of this historic milestone.
The celebration of year 2022 has also to be viewed in the backdrop of the Vision Document for 2024 prepared by the Union Ministry of Rural Development in coordination with the NITI Aayog. And of course Mr Modi’s assertion that celebration of 75th Independence Day in 2022 should also be envisaged as the celebration of the “dream of India” as his Government had promised to achieve some big-ticket goals by this year.
Although a spate of targets had been set by the Government, as enunciated in the Vision Document, with 2022 as the deadline, the biggest and foremost are eradication of poverty and doubling the income of farmers by 2022. The Document claimed that the country has succeeded in finding a solution to remove poverty. The moot point, as the New Year sets in, is whether this goal has been achieved alongside doubling the farmers’ income.
To find an answer to this question can be anybody’s guess. There is no doubt that the process had been set-in to achieve these goals but the problem lies, if these goals are not achieved by the end of 2022 and which seems eminent, in the penchant of the current ruling dispensation at the Center to set tight deadlines for mega projects as a measure of efficiency and machismo with the sole aim of making headlines.
True to the image of the Modi Government of hyper-symbolism to mark important occasions, at least 40 mega-targets were set to mark the 75th Independence Day celebration as projected in the Vision Document and enunciated by the Prime Minister from time to time. Although each of these programmes are significant, let us focus on the following 10 schemes which directly relate to the needs and imagination of the common persons that the ruling BJP has tried and managed to a great extent, to capture.
* Every Indian will have a house by 2022.
* Every Indian will have a toilet by 2022.
* Every Indian will have 24/7 electricity supply by 2022.
* Farmers’ incomes will be doubled by 2022. Interestingly and in a clever move neither the base on which the income will be doubled nor the year has been specified. Since the income is related to inflation it is bound to increase which in any case is not a profit.
* “Provide irrigation to all farms (Har Khet Ko Pani) with improved on-farm water-use efficiency (more crop per drop).”
* There will be no crop residue burning to reduce air pollution.
* Every Indian will have a water connection by 2022. This deadline has already been extended to 2024 quietly burying the 2022 deadline.
* India will be free of malnutrition by 2022.
* Seven hundred district HQ hospitals will be turned into “medical centres” through public-private partnership. Whether it meant total privatization of the healthcare sector at the grassroots level?
*Two-three million jobs to be created in the healthcare sector, and 40 million through tourism and 5 million new jobs in the mines and minerals sectors.
The deadline set by the Government to achieve these and other targets is August 15, 2022. The one assessment as to the achievement of these goals will be through the Prime Minister’s Independence Day speech from the ramparts of the Red Fort as this in all probability will be the central theme of his address to mark the 75th year celebration. Although the bureaucrats have the knack to bring in the magical figures to showcase achievements, in all fairness one would wait for the Prime Minister to deliver his address before a final assessment of the targets set and goals met.
Still, achieving these targets, mostly set in or after 2016, in such a short span of time is certainly a tall order, howsoever efficient the delivery system be. One plausible excuse in the hands of the ruling dispensation to explain the non-achievements, if any, is the situation created by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Second and a more reliable measure, since the 10 schemes are directly related to common people’s life-roti, kapda aur makan- will be the people themselves. None other than the prospective beneficiaries of these high-profile schemes will be best placed to evaluate the Government’s performance on these fronts.
Apart from the COVID-19 pandemic the BJP-led ruling dispensation, with a brilliant track-record of electoral victories, has developed a system of justifying everything including non-performance or failures under the cover of people’s mandate. Firstly, the elections are not contested and won on developmental issues and secondly sentimental and emotional issues related to religion and caste are used to divert the voters’ attention from the Government’s performance chart.
This apart the ruling dispensation will have a bigger challenge staring at them in 2022 which comes in the form of economic, political and societal stability. Currently the situation on all these three fronts is in a flux with different dimensions. Given the large size of the Indian market, the economy is bound to pick up, of course, which will depend on how the third phase of COVID-19 unfolds or not.
Last but not the least much will depend on the economic growth front on political and societal stability. True, BJP is a strong ruling party with absolute majority in Lok Sabha and governing in majority of the states and that surely is a contributing factor to political stability. Both economic and political stability in turn depends on the tranquility prevailing in the society. Given the current situation all eyes will be riveted on how the Government and the ruling party deal with the societal problems in 2022. It will also be viewed in the context of promises made by Prime Minister Modi to be achieved by the 75th year of Independence.
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