It’s the Karnataka poll season, which also means it is the season of freebies.
The Congress has announced freebies that may cost the state exchequer thousands of crores if the party wins the election and forms the next government in the state.
Its five poll guarantees include 200 units of free electricity to every Karnataka household, Rs 2,000 monthly to a woman of each family, free travel for women on state buses, Rs 3,000 for every graduate youth and Rs 1,500 for every diploma holder for two years and 10 kg free rice to every member of a Below Poverty Line (BPL) family.
NUMBERSPEAK: THE CONGRESS’s PROMISES
According to the All India Survey on Higher Education – 2020-21, Karnataka had 18.12 lakh undergraduate students in 2020-21. If we take that as the base number, on an average, around six lakh students pass the final graduation degree exam each year, going by the usual standard of three-year courses in the country.
As per the poll promise, these six lakh graduate students, between 18 and 25 years, will get Rs 3,000 every month, which comes to Rs 2,160 crore a year or Rs 4,320 crore for two years.
According to AISHE 2020-21, the state had 2,56,521 students in diploma and post-graduate diplomas in 2020-21. The Congress has promised Rs 1,500 a month for two years. That comes to Rs 923.28 crore, if we take the number of diploma holders expected to pass out in 2020-21 as the standard.
The manifesto promises Rs 2,000 to the woman head of every family under its Gruha Lakshmi scheme. According to the Census 2011, Karnataka had 1.31 crore households of different types — permanent, semi-permanent and temporary. One direct interpretation of the promise is a woman of each of these houses will get Rs 2,000 every month. The calculation comes to Rs 31,680 crore a year.
The Congress has promised every household free electricity of up to 200 units every month. If we take the current electricity cost in Bengaluru as the base, the total cost is Rs 1,584.88 crore a month. Annually, minus taxes, it is expected to cost the state exchequer Rs 19,018.56 crore.
Under the Anna Bhagya Scheme, every person in a BPL family will get free 10 kg grains of choice, either rice, jowar or ragi. Under the Shakti Scheme, every woman can travel across the state for free in government-owned buses. The Congress has also promised to consider re-implementing the old pension scheme (OPS), like it did in other states. If implemented, these measures may additionally cost the state exchequer a huge sum of money. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), too, had formed a panel in March 2023 to study the reintroduction of OPS after a strike by lakhs of government employees.
NUMBERSPEAK: THE BJP’s PROMISES
The BJP, in its manifesto, has promised 500 ml of free Nandini milk to each BPL card holder household if it retains power. The cost of Nandini toned milk is Rs 20 a litre. As per the Karnataka Food, Civil Supply and Consumer Affairs Dept, the state has 1,17,33,766 crore families with priority household (PHH) BPL ration cards, with 3,97,80,053 dependent family members. These are registered under the National Food Security Act, 2013. The cost of giving a packet of toned Nandini milk each day will come to Rs 8,566 crore a year.
Karnataka is considered among rich states of the country, contributing 8.2% to the country’s GDP and is India’s third largest economy after Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. According to the Karnataka Economic Survey 2022-23, the state’s per capita income in 2021-22 was Rs 2,65,623. It was fourth in India after Delhi, Telangana, and Haryana. In 2022-23, it reached Rs 3,01,673, a 13.6% rise. That clearly tells that a huge number of BPL cards in the state may carry many bogus entries.
IndiaSpend came out with an analytical report on the BPL population in Karnataka quoting a 2018 official report. The report put Karnataka’s BPL population at 1.29 crore. This means 25.80 lakh families, if we consider a family consists of five members. Free Nandini milk each day would cost Rs 5.16 crore and Rs 1,883.4 crore a year.
Another promise in the BJP’s manifesto is three free LPG cylinders to BPL families each year on Ugadi, Ganesh Chaturthi and Deepavali. The price of a single domestic LPG cylinder in Karnataka is Rs 1,055.50. The total cost comes to Rs 3,166.50 a year. Giving these for free to 1,17,33,766 BPL cards holder units means Rs 3,715 crore a year.
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