The TN FM interview to the IE reads — to me at least — as more like a political rant and tirade against the Central Govt. than anything else of great substance in the discourse of actual governance …
The Indian Express 21 Feb 2022
He rants against the conditionality of Central Govt loans available to TN State. A borrower can negotiate with a lender but cannot dictate to him the terms of lending. If you don’t like the terms and conditions offered by a lender, don’t take the loan. Period. Don’t try to give lectures and lessons to the lender on how he should be lending his money or how “unfair” he is —- in this case trying to demonise “Article 293 (3) FRBM Act of of the Indian Union”
The FM should understand that the same demonic law was not his enemy when his own Party signed up to it when it was first enacted in 2003 and thereafter, even in the 10 long following years when it shared power with the then ruling Central Government, it did nothing to amend the Act! Suddenly, now it is seen by the FM to be fundamentally flawed! What was your DMK party doing then between 2004-14, Sir?
The FM now also rants against how the Central Govt. is swamping the states with several Centrally sponsored public welfare Schemes and takes all the credit for their local success.
Well… it was this Central Govt. that has been the first ever in independent India to have had the will to usher in DTB (direct transfer to bank a/c) system of cash transfer under public welfare schemes to reach people directly and efficiently … without having the State Govt. intermediating in such distribution.
The DTB system has eliminated to a large extent distribution leakages and has truly benefited ordinary people being the beneficiaries who have been now freed from the clutches and machinations of local corruption. We all know how the central government MNREGA funds used to be distributed by the States acting as funnelling agents. There used to be corruption galore.
Why did the DMK-AIADMK govts (who often boast of being pioneers in Welfarism in the whole country) not think of bringing in such efficient and transparent DTB systems in the last 50 years while in power both in the State and in the Centre as coalition partner?
And if the Central Govt. today through its plethora of public schemes is bringing benefits to people directly to their doorsteps, should the FM of Tamil Nadu be moaning and whining about it only because it dims and diminishes the ruling state Govt.’s political lustre? Or is he complaining because it denies the State Govt. the opportunities of financial intermediation or funnelling/transmitting central funds to state populations?
The FM in the interview also seems to be ranting hoarse against the GST Act and the way it devolves tax revenues from the Union Exchequer to the State Exchequer. He seems to have taken a cue from the vacuous rhetoric of Rahul Gandhi who has dubbed GST as “Gabbar Singh Tax”.
The FM seems to be in favour of the repeal of the GST and returning to the old regime of States levying their own indirect taxes under their own jurisdictions in accordance with their own needs and wants, all in the name of Federalism and Financial Autonomy.
Little does the FM realise that even hinting, let alone mooting such a back-to-tribalism idea only ends up revealing his Party’s intellectual and moral bankruptcy and his own political immaturity.
In spite of all the challenges and teething problems faced in implementing the GST regime in the last 5 years, does he not see that the people of India at large have already accepted the GST without any further demur or murmur other than what was expressed at inception? Business and Industry, big and small, of this country have come to now realise the relative ease of doing business within the country that GST has enabled as compared to how the messy situation used to be hitherto… ! Wake up, please, FM Sir!
And more importantly the whole world of foreign investors and industrialists has now the comfort of doing business in India knowing that a unified, stable and rational tax regime is in place across the sub-continental 29+ odd States! …
Sir, dear FM of Tamil Nadu, may I make a sincere appeal to you? Please do us all, your humble people of this blessed State, a favour.
Please stop at once simply echoing Rahul Gandhi’s asinine slogan of “Gabbar Singh Tax” while referring to the GST. By doing so you only discredit your own professional reputation as a savvy investment-banker, and much worse than that , you bring your own dear DMK into political disrepute as a political party that only makes specious excuses for and tries to cover up its own ineptitude in handling State public finances in what is most certainly a very precarious Post-Covid situation Tamil Nadu finds itself in today.
Sir FM, please, by not echoing Rahul Gandhi, you can thereby also stop insulting the native financial intelligence of we ordinary Tamilians.
Sudarshan Madabushi