Be it agriculture or infrastructure, health or relief and rehabilitation, serving communities or transferring benefits, the Shiv Sena-BJP government under Eknath Shinde that completes a year on Friday, appears to have all geared up on the governance front though the continuous brick biting and political wrangling has overshadowed the performance of the government.
Removing roadblocks created by MVA government
After taking charge, the first thing that the Shinde-Fadnavis government had to do was to remove the roadblocks created by the Uddhav Thackeray led MVA government in various infrastructure projects that were both prestigious as well as very important for serving the people. The Mumbai Metro-3 and High Speed Railway (Bullet Train) were the two most crucial projects on this list. Regarding other projects, the government stepped on the accelerator and the result was seen when two phases of the ‘Hindu Hriday Samrat Balasaheb Thackeray Samruddhi Corridor’ were opened besides two metro lines in Mumbai. The MTHL, named after former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpeyee on Wednesday, too is 95 per cent complete and the first phase of the Metro-3 too is likely to be operational by this year-end.
Relief to farmers
Incessant rains was another major issue the government had to deal with. The rains continued almost until mid-summer, which led to huge losses to the farmers. The government amended the list of ‘natural calamities’ and included incessant rains in the list to provide relief to the farmers. The NDRF criteria were revised and 62.60 lakh farmers got financial aid worth ₹7,093.19 crore. The government also made additional provision of ₹1,500 crore for the purpose. Also, ₹4,683 crore have been transferred directly to the accounts of 12.84 lakh farmers in addition to the Central government’s scheme.
The state government also expedited 29 projects to help irrigate 6.5 lakh hectares of land and announced to avail crop insurance at premium of ₹1. The government also allocated ₹3,312 for the scheme, which is likely to contain the unease among the farmers. The Jalayukta Shivar scheme for water conservation and the scheme for solar electrification for farms too, were revived, which is likely to be a game changer.
Government schemes
Apart from the government schemes, the state government brought in its own schemes and wherever the Central schemes were better, the state schemes were aligned with them. Like the Mahatma Phule Jana Arogya Yojana was merged with the PMAY earlier this week. This will ensure increased and assured benefits to the people. The government has also brought in a scheme of community dispensaries named as “Balasaheb Thackeray Aapapala Dawakhana”. While Mumbai already has 150 of them, the state will have 700 more in next few months. Response to such schemes is very encouraging.
While reviving the ailing state road transport corporation, the state government announced ‘free’ travel for citizens above 75 years of age. While 10 crore seniors are likely to benefit from the scheme, the 50% concession for women will benefit 14 crore more. Decisions like increasing numbers and quantity of scholarships, increasing sustenance allowances have benefitted the students. The government has also announced starting new government colleges, adding centres of excellence to the engineering colleges and starting nine new medical colleges.
Renaming cities
In its efforts to keep the emotional appeals intact, the government also changed the names of Aurangabad, Osmanabad and Ahmednagar cities and started several tourism related schemes named after Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj and Veer Savarkar.
However, instead of weighing the performance of the government on merit and cornering the government wherever it lacked, the opposition MVA kept criticising the government over non-issues like “Khoke” (bribe) and “gaddar” (traitor) for the whole of the past year. The exchanges between the MVA, particularly the Thackeray-led group, and the ruling partners are expected to turn more vitriolic ahead of the Assembly and Lok Sabha polls in 2024 and the much-delayed local body elections expected to be held later this year.
The government has already approved the formation of a SIT to probe “irregularities” worth ₹12,024 crore in various works of the Mumbai civic body flagged by the CAG. While it is unlikely to silence the opposition, the attack on the government too, is unlikely to have any substance in the near future.
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