Spilt Ink On Merit Cards

It’s a term, now old-fashioned and once reserved for the best of despots, that psephologist Biswanath Chakraborty uses to describe Mamata Banerjee’s rule: a ‘benevolent dictatorship’. Benevolent, because of her social welfare schemes, and dictatorial, because of her great reluctance to allow any space to the Opposition or critics. The Trinamool Congress supremo has repeatedly proclaimed that her government’s schemes cover a person “from birth to death”. Opponents denounce her “politics of dole”.

A brief sampling of the schemes is rev­ealing. Under the Bangla Matri Prakalpa, first-time mothers are entitled to Rs 5,000 in three instalments, while the Matri Yaan project is a government-run free ambulance service to increase the rate of institutional delivery. And Samabyathi entitles family members an assistance of Rs 2,000 for cremation.

Of numerous other schemes, Sabuj Sathi provides bicycles to schoolchildren from classes IX to XII in all government-run and -aided schools; Kanyashree gives underprivileged girl students from 13 to 18 an annual stipend of Rs 750 and Rs 25,000 on turning 18, given she is unmarried, is studying or is pursuing a career. Rupashree Prakalpa, introduced in 2018, offers a one-time grant of Rs 25,000 for marriage of women above 18 with family income below Rs 1.5 lakh a year. Shikshashree provides Rs 800 annual assistance to students of classes V to VIII from SC/ST communities, while Aikyashree provides scholarship to poor students from min­ority communities. Under Yuvashree, unemployed persons aged between 18 and 45 who have registered in the state employment bank get Rs 1,500 monthly stipend.

Then, the government has pension for workers in the unorganised sector, a monthly stipend for folk and handicraft artistes, death benefits for farmers and unorganised sector workers, pension for senior citizens from SC/ST communities, and so on.

Several have earned international recognition. Kanyashree won the United Nations Public Service Award in 2017. Utkarsh Bangla, the government’s skill development programme, bagged the first prize for ‘capacity building’ at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), a UN body, in 2019.

Under the Lokprasar Prakalpo, 76,000 folk artistes under 60, whom the government engages in various campaign activities, are paid Rs 1,000 a month. Besides, another 8,596 folk artistes get a monthly pension of Rs 1,000.

Besides such direct aid, the TMC government provides rice at Rs 2 per kg to roughly 82 per cent of the state’s projected population, according to Right to Food activist Anuradha Talwar, whereas the Centre’s scheme of rice at Rs 3 per kg covers 62 per cent of the state’s population. The state’s public distribution system reforms has been praised by economist Jean Dreze, who noted in 2016 that “greater transparency, simpler entitlements and other PDS reforms seem to have led to a sharp decline in leakage”.

Politics, especially the Centre vs state kind, has reared its head too. West Bengal did not implement the Centre’s PM-KISAN scheme that provides Rs 6,000 annual cash benefits to each farmer in three instalments, and Ayushman Bharat, which provides a health insurance cover of Rs 5 lakh per family a year. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah has rep­eatedly blamed Mamata for depriving the people from these benefits. The state government argues that they are unnecessary, for its own schemes are better and predate the Central ones.  

“The Centre’s scheme has flat rates for farmers. But we provide Rs 5,000 per acre in two instalments. Besides, when a farmer aged between 18 and 60 dies, a one-time grant of Rs 2 lakh is given to the families,” the CM recently said on the issue.

Now, to trump the Centre’s health ins­urance scheme, the state has perhaps offered its biggest sop—a universal health insurance scheme. The benefits of Swastha Sathi, which provides cashless insurance worth Rs 5 lakh to a family every year, has been extended to the entire population, exc­luding only those who have government-provided health insurances or health allowances. It appeared to be an instant hit, going by the crowds that thronged government camps—under the Duarey Sarkar, or ‘government at your doorstep’ programme—over the last week to enrol for Swastha Sathi.

“Several million people attended the camps in the first phase of Duare Sarkar from December 1 to 11 and Swastha Sathi was what most came for. These camps will be held in three more phases over December and January. Nowhere else in the country does a universal cashless health insurance scheme exist, which includes nearly 1,500 medical establishments, including prominent ones outside the state,” says labour minister Malay Ghatak. He adds that in government hospitals—where treatment is free in any case—the TMC government introduced fair price shops that sell medicines at a discount of up to 66 per cent.

The TMC recently claimed that the state’s budget has increased in all key sectors. Its recently-rel­eased report card claimed that the health and family welfare budget inc­reased from Rs 3,442 crores in 2010 to Rs 11,280 crores in 2020, the budget for education, sports and culture increased from Rs 13,872 cr in 2010 to Rs 37,059 cr in 2020-21, that for agriculture and all­ied service rose from Rs 2,274 cr in 2010 to Rs 10,648 cr in 2020-21, and the one for Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes welfare schemes doubled to exceed Rs 2,024 crores.

Despite all these schemes, their many beneficiaries and the massive outlay to pay for them, there is a groundswell of disenchantment over Mamata Banerjee’s rule.

According to Kartik Pal, a politburo member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), the government did praiseworthy work in several sectors, including in healthcare. “Nevertheless, the government failed to create jobs and alleviate the income of the poor, as was reflected by the sheer number of migrant workers who returned to the state amidst the COVID-19 lockdown. Besides, this government’s major problem is corruption at the grassroots level and lack of democratic space,” says Pal.

Biswanath Chakraborty, too, admits that Mamata Banerjee’s benevolence could not be denied. “But there are two major problems. First, there is lack of development with dignity. The government tried to create a patron-client rel­ationship with the people. Secondly, benefits are not reaching the target population often enough, either due to a partisan attitude or individual corruption among TMC leaders. As leaders seek illegal cuts from people’s entitlements under the schemes, they are angry, not pleased,” says Chakraborty.

Anuradha Talwar, too, echoes this. “Policy-wise, Mamata’s government has been more pro-poor than the last leg of the Left Front rule. But implementation has been badly interrupted by partisanship and corruption. Thus, benefits didn’t often reach those they were meant for,” adds Talwar.

In June 2019, Mamata had publicly rebuked leaders for seeking illegal commissions from beneficiaries of government projects, including the Rs 2,000 grant under Samabyathi. Despite her jehad against illegal cuts, corruption marred another of her praiseworthy moves—a cash grant Rs 20,000 each to those whose houses were damaged by cyclone Amphan that ravaged Bengal in May this year. Cor­rup­tion and bias, it seems, are the two issues that mar Mamata’s largesse.

By Snigdhendu Bhattacharya in Calcutta