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Competition in the market has driven down 4G rates to more affordable levels and the government should have considered all these factors before offering free services to gain votes at taxpayers’ expense
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The State government has finally gone ahead with its ‘free talk time’ scheme which will place a burden of Rs 1 crore per month on the exchequer. The ostensible aim of the scheme is to provide rural youth with internet connectivity at 3G or 4G speeds, but it would not be incorrect to state that the real intention behind it is to woo young voters to the BJP. This scheme, which is supposed to run for a period of three years will place a total burden of Rs 36 crore on the government.
Goa has the second highest per capita income in the country and an economic growth rate of nearly 8 per cent per annum. So the question that arises is whether the youth really require free internet data SIM cards? Did the government undertake any study to ascertain the economic status of the intended beneficiaries? Or will this scheme be extended to all and sundry, even if they happen to fall in high income brackets? The information technology department has no data on how many people own mobile phones and how many of them possess smartphones. Goa is serviced by at least three major telecom companies and the fourth has just announced free services till the end of December. Competition in the market has driven down 4G rates to more affordable levels and the government should have considered all these factors before offering free services to gain votes at taxpayers’ expense. There is merit in providing services to people who cannot afford them, but giving freebies to people can easily pay for them is a criminal waste of funds.
This tendency to give freebies to citizens without an economic condition has forced other political parties to jump on to the bandwagon. Since benefits of this nature cannot be withdrawn, the next government is stuck with a bill of over Rs 1,000 crore by way of doles. This is a legacy of the BJP which first launched the cyberage scheme to provide free computers to all students with no clear aim. For the present financial year, the government has set aside Rs 40 crore to provide laptops to students -- more as a gift than a learning tool.
Gifts of this nature cannot be withdrawn and in all probability, the list will get longer as political parties compete with each other to please the electorate. The government is short of funds and had to take a loan of Rs 450 crore from NABARD to build a third bridge across the Mandovi. This has taken up the cost of the bridge (with interest) to nearly Rs 850 crore. The government had to delay payment of Seventh Pay salaries because it is running out of funds for the current year. And yet it continues to launch schemes that will eventually turn Goa into a beggar State with citizens begging for more and more. This is a distorted and corrupted version of a welfare state.
