A Rs5000cr sop opera in Bengal

In a mad rush to beat the Election Commission’s model code of conduct, the West Bengal government on Monday gifted the electorate a Rs 5,106-crore pre-poll package that includes providing rice at Rs 2 a kg to those below the poverty line.
The generosity will cost the state exchequer Rs 1,000 crore. Finance minister Asim Dasgupta dubbed it “extra-budgetary allocation”. While most annoucements will be implemented within a week, some schemes would spill over to the new fiscal, he said. The EC is set to announce the dates for the Lok Sabha polls by the month-end.
Dasgupta denied that the Rs 2-a-kg rice sop — it will cost the government Rs 370 crore since the state has around Rs 1.8 crore BPL cardholders — had anything to do with the polls. “We had already tried a pilot project three months ago.”
He insisted that the announcement had nothing to do with the elections. “It’s recession and the polls are also here. In times of meltdown, we had to expand the domestic market by helping the common man increase his income,” Dasgupta said.
So, the finance minister announced recruitment of 50,000 teachers (to fill up the existing 60,000 vacancies) and a 20 % hike in pay for college and university teachers.
The last, he explained, was as per the UGC’s recommendations. Till the other day, however, the minister had been insisting that there was a severe funds crunch in the wake of the meltdown. That was also his reason for reimposing sales tax on fuel. On Monday, he claimed to have “calculated some excess generation in the coming budgetary year”. He refused to elaborate.