Opinion Scrap the TPP

Consequently,it went through revisions in 1982,1986 and 2006 and the 2006 version still exists. This recast TPP covers (1) poverty eradication; (2) power to people; (3) support to farmers; (4) labour welfare; (5) food security; (6) housing for all; (7) clean drinking water; (8) health for all; (9) education for all; (10) welfare of SCs/STs/OBCs/minorities; (11) women welfare; (12) child welfare; (13) youth development; (14) improvement of slums; (15) environment protection and afforestation; (16) social security; (17) rural roads; (18) energization of rural areas; (19) development of backward areas; and (20) IT-enabled e-governance. That’s the entire gamut of development and governance and had TPP worked,we would no longer have had poor in India. Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MOSPI) monitors how States have been performing in implementing TPP. It tracks 66 variables spread across these 20 heads and then aggregates the variables into points. (NREGA) is one of these.

All such methodologies can always be questioned. Why not other variables? What’s quality of data? What are weights and what is the aggregation formula?

In Ministry’s recent evaluation,top performers are Gujarat,Karnataka,Jharkhand,Punjab and UP and worst States are Bihar,West Bengal,Maharashtra,J&K and Chattisgarh. Congress has taken umbrage and the Congress spokesperson (Manish Tewari) has said,“The person who has made the report is not aware of facts.” While Sriprakash Jaiswal should respond to this statement,two observations are general. First,there aren’t too many major purely Congress-ruled States.

Second,to the extent there are purely Congress-ruled States,across a variety of programmes,non-Congress States perform better on administrative delivery and this is documented for NREGA. The Manish Tewari assertion about Punjab’s fiscal mess not being recognized is a red herring. Fiscal imbalance isn’t part of the evaluation. Indeed,it should be and one should question unwarranted subsidies,populism and extravagant and pointless public expenditure,points made by Punjab’s ex-Finance Minister.

However,once one opens up that can of worms,one should argue TPP is a waste of money. For the most part,MOSPI is also a waste of money. Hence,we agree TPP should be scrapped – the country because it is a waste,and Congress because it doesn’t perform well.

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