Recently TDP state president Kimidi Kala Venkata Rao has said that TDP government had fulfilled 98 per cent of the promises mentioned in the election manifesto in 2014. Kimidi Kala Venkata Rao reminded people that Naidu signed on the files related to loan waiver to farmers and self-help groups immediately after taking charge. While TDP is claiming that it has fulfilled 98% of promises, opposition parties are charging that none of the promises mentioned in manifesto were delivered by TDP government.
Needless to say, both these statements are far from truth. Let us revisit the manifesto and try to analyze it impartially and rationally.
Let’s see first the Key promises made in the TDP manifesto in 2014
- Waiver of farmers’ crop loans.
- Waiver of loans taken by groups for the development of women and children in rural areas (DWCRA).
- Old age pensions to be enhanced to Rs 1,000.
- Job to every graduate or family (Intiko Udyogam). If unemployed, Unemployment allowance of Rs 2,000 per month
- Nine hours’ free power supply to farmers for agriculture.
Reviewing these key Promises
Crop loan waiver: This promise was game changer for TDP party. Some analysts attribute this promise more than administrative capabilities of CBN for bringing TDP back into power. CBN signed on this file immediately after taking charge and Rs 24,000 crore worth of farm loans are being waived off. TDP says it has covered 80 per cent of farmers who had taken loans below Rs 50,000. This means 20% of farmers who took less than 50k loan are still not benefitted by this scheme and much more percentage of farmers who got more than 50,000 loan are still waiting for waive-off. For those who took above 50k loan not fully covered yet, and TDP says they would be covered if it comes to power again in 2019.
Verdict: Mostly Successful.
Fulfilled the promise mostly, if not completely. Especially, 80% of those who have taken loans less than 50k are happy.
Loan waiver for self-help groups: This was not as successful as Crop loan waiver. There was lot of confusion and chaos regarding this. DWCRA women assumed, as TDP came into power, they don’t have to bother at all about the loans and they simply stopped repayment of loans in the belief that the state would close them.
But State could not do it immediately and meanwhile they are unable to get new loans because of non-repayment of the old ones. The state has so far allocated Rs 10,000 crore for waiver of loans for DWCRA groups.
Verdict: Partially successful.
Partially successful as some of the DWCRA loans are waived-off. But many of these are not waived-off yet and in this election year budget, 1000 Crore was mentioned for Self-help group loans.
Free power supply: Farmers have been provided nine hours of free power supply, at a cost of Rs 3,000 crore to the exchequer.
Verdict: Completely successful.
Old age Pension scheme: Old age pension is incremented from 250 to 1000/- . Even though there are some incidents where some old age people complained that they didn’t receive pensions, that is mostly due to bureaucratic and administrative issues rather than failure from government. As per reports, around Rs 26,000 crore spent towards pensions for the aged, the handicapped and widows.
Verdict: Completely successful.
A job to every family (Intiko Udyogam): This was another promise that influenced youth vote a lot. It is obvious that it is impractical for any government to provide job to each and every graduate or even one job for a family. But let’s confine our discussion to – whether what was promised in manifesto was delivered or not. TDP manifesto also talked about unemployment allowance of 2000/- per unemployed. Even though there were group-1, group-2, DSC notifications after 2014, the quantum of jobs given were nowhere comparable to the promise – “Jobs to every family”. Agreed that TDP has just begun working on this, but the fact is nobody has ever received that 2000/- unemployment assistance in state.
Verdict: Failure.
As most of us are accustomed to movie reviews and ratings, let’s put these results also in that format and see the remark and ratings on these top-5 promises
| Scheme | Remark | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Waiver of farmers’ crop loans | Mostly Successful | 3.5/5 |
| Loan waiver for self-help groups | Partially successful | 2.5/5 |
| 9 hours free power supply to farmers | Completely successful | 4/5 |
| Old age pension scheme | Completely successful | 4/5 |
| Job to every family or unemployment assistance | Failure | 1/5 |
In fact there are many other promises and some of them like Kapu reservation should actually find place in these top-5 promises, but they were discussed in subsequent article, just to club relevant promises in single article.
Click Here for Part 2 – Revisiting TDP manifesto 2014 (Part-2) – List of Promises failed miserably
-ZURAN
