UP govt to pay people Rs 25,000 a month to publicise its schemes: This is truly sabka sath, sabka vikas
Ahead of the 2017 Uttar Pradesh elections, the BJP had promised to create 70 lakh jobs in five years. In power, the party has found a novel to way to work towards fulfilling that promise.
In a cabinet meeting held on August 7, the Uttar Pradesh government reportedly decided to appoint 824 ‘Lok Kalyan Mitras’, to publicise its schemes across the state.
The scheme is truly sabka sath, sabka vikas: some people get jobs, the government gets publicity, the party, hopefully, gets some votes. And, oh, taxpayers foot the bill.
Not a small bill.
The 822 Lok Kalyan Mitras appointed for each block will get Rs 25,000 per month and Rs 5,000 for transport. Two Lok Kalyan Mitras appointed at the state-level will get Rs 35,000 per month, and Rs 5,000 as additional expenses. For one year, the sum comes to a cool Rs 29 crore (Rs 29,67,70,000).
A written exam will be held to select the Lok Kalyan Mitras for a period of one year, and their contracts will be renewed on the basis of performance, to be assessed by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath himself, say reports.
Essentially, ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP government will systematically appoint PR personnel, spend crores on the process, and apparently make the public pay for it.
Here, the UP government is learning from the best.
An RTI plea recently revealed that the BJP government at the Centre, in the past three years, used up Rs 3,214.7 crore on publicity, more than double of what the UPA government had spent in 10 years.
Can Uttar Pradesh afford to spend close to Rs 30 crore to make the government look good?
For perspective, the fiscal deficit after the 2018 budget in the state stood at Rs 44,053.32 crore. The budget outlay for distributing uniforms to schoolchildren was Rs 40 crore. The provision for dairy development in the agrarian state was Rs 15 crore.
This is not all.
According to an IndiaSpend report, the average per capita health expenditure per year in Uttar Pradesh is Rs 733, among the lowest in the country.
UP is the glittering jewel in the BJP’s crown — the party swept 71 of the 80 seats in the state in the 2014, on which its massive Lok Sabha tally of 282 was anchored.
After a similar impressive show in the 2017 Assembly polls and the appointment of Yogi Adityanath as the chief minister, the BJP had hoped to build on its gains.
However, recent by-elections presented a different picture.
In March, just around the time that Adityanath completed one year in office — a year marked by a crackdown on illegal slaughterhouses and a major push to “control crime” through encounters — the BJP lost bypolls in Gorakhpur, the seat of the CM himself, and Phulpur, which was held by deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya.
Just a month later came the defeat in Kairana, where the Opposition came together to unseat the saffron party despite even the PM making an appearance to campaign.
With the 2019 elections due in less than a year, time is running out for the BJP, and Uttar Pradesh is crucial to its plans.
In the scenario, the party seems to have taken the shorter route — if we can’t bring achche din, we can spend achcha money to make people believe they are living achche din.
An idea worth a crore, indeed. Of public money.
Also read: What Uttar Pradesh's cash-for-encounter raj says about Yogi Adityanath