Report card 2004-2009

The largest elections in history begin tomorrow. What do I think about the performance of the government about to be replaced, or reelected?

Like many, I was mightily surprised by the victory of the Congress 5 years ago. That vote made me lose most of my faith in the opinion polls conducted by the Indian media. I was pleased with the outcome, though I disapproved of Manmohan Singh becoming prime minister without being elected to the Lok Sabha.

Good

First, the good. The most significant achievements of the government were the enactment of the Right to Information act (RTI) and the National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme (NREG). The RTI has made government more transparent and has made it easier for the citizenry to hold governments and bureaucrats to account. As an avowed partisan of small government, I have misgivings about the NREG. However, designed in a manner to essentially transfer cash to the poor, it is probably the best poverty relief scheme that we have. It seems to have been setup such that there is some local accountability to mitigate leakages.

The nuclear agreement with the United States almost brought down the government. But Singh deserves to be commended for sticking to his guns, ensuring that India's nuclear energy programme can be kickstarted after stalling due to lack of fuel. The behaviour of the BJP with regards to the treaty was disgraceful.

The government continued the work done under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan begun during the previous government's tenure. The massive investments in this endeavour are correcting a historical wrong and will hopefully give India big dividends in the medium term.

The railways did unexpectedly well under Laloo. I give him credit, if for nothing else than atleast not interfering too much with the technocrats. Also implemented was the Value Added Tax. It was put into progress by the Vajpayee government, but actually implementing anything in India must be given credit :)

Bad

The list of the bads is not long, but has had more impact, unfortunately. The UPA government ruled during a period of unprecedented prosperity. In the five years from April '04 to March '09, India's GDP grew by almost 50%. Tax receipts went up from 1.9 lakh crore in FY04 to an estimated 4.6 lakh crore in FY09! Yet the government ran a deficit in every single year! Subsidising oil and fertilizers, maintaining the army of bureaucrats and waiving farmer debts (often granted in the first place because of government mandated priority sector lending) all wasted significant sums. The resulting debt burden is pushing up interest rates and making it difficult for the private sector to obtain affordable funding. And of course, the government's return on the borrowed funds will surely not be enough to prevent future generations being burdened with additional taxes or inflation.

The highway building programme pushed by the BJP was neglected and it consequently stalled. So was the case with divestment of government stakes in PSUs. Internal security suffered as city after city was subjected to multiple terrorist attacks, and all the government seemed to have were mere words and a home minister who always made sure his clothes were clean and ironed. The Naxalites have been bolder and more destructive in the last five years too, it appears. The constitutional right to freedom of movement for every Indian citizen was allowed to be attacked in the streets of Bombay as the MNS threatened migrants, while both the state and centre looked on in silence.

Overall my impression of the government is that it acted when it should have sat pat (not spending the burgeoning tax revenues, for example), and became a mum spectator when the situation cried out for action (not improving intelligence services and policing even as the Naxalites and Islamic terrorists kept attacking rural and urban areas respectively). Too many wasted opportunities :(