Rajasthan crosses policy challenges

The state has implemented a series of labour, industry and legal reforms, and received investment proposals worth Rs 3.5 lakh cr

In another two and a half years, Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje will seek a fresh mandate from voters for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. However, it may be difficult for her to repeat the success of the 2013 assembly elections, in which her party had won a landslide victory by winning 163 seats out of a total of 200 seats.

Ms Raje will face difficulties on two counts. First, she may not be able to reap the benefits of the so-called Modi wave that catapulted Prime Minister Narendra Modi to power at the Centre in 2014 and helped the BJP form governments in other states such as Jharkhand and Haryana. Ms Raje’s second challenge will be the anti-incumbency factor. Over the past two decades people have alternately voted the BJP and the Congress to power in Rajasthan; neither party has won two consecutive elections.

Political analysts say that Ms Raje is well aware of these challenges, and is taking measures to counter them. Also, she appears to have learnt from her mistakes in her previous stint as chief minister, between 2003 and 2008. “This time, Ms Raje is working hard. She wants to be seen on a par with the other BJP chief ministers such as Shivraj Chouhan of Madhya Pradesh and Raman Singh of Chhattisgarh,” says a senior party functionary in Rajasthan.

Mr Chouhan and Mr Singh have grown in stature in the BJP after they won three assembly elections in a row in their respective states.

Ms Raje knows that she has an uphill task. She has already begun work by successfully changing the negative perceptions surrounding her previous government. Ms Raje was allegedly inaccessible during her first term, but she hit the ground running soon after she took over the reins of the state government in December 2013.

Among Ms Raje’s major outreach programmes was Sarkar Aapke Dwar (‘the government at your doorstep’). She camped in Bharatpur, Bikaner and Udaipur on different occasions for two to three days along with her cabinet ministers and senior bureaucrats, directly hearing the complaints of the people. Though the programme had the right intent, it did not yield the desired results. Soon after the programme in Bharatpur, Ms Raje’s party lost three of the four assembly by-elections.

Many say the by-election losses were the result of inordinate delays in granting old-age pensions and her government’s decisions to cut the scope of the free medicine scheme launched by her predecessor, Ashok Gehlot (Congress). People also rejected Ms Raje’s idea of shutting down neighbourhood schools to pool resources at one school. This did not hold back the Raje government from taking some tough decisions, which included involving the private sector in running state-owned primary health care centres, schools and diagnostic centres through public-private partnerships (PPPs). PPPs were also started in tourism, solar power and transportation.

Ms Raje blames it on the financial mismanagement of the previous Ashok Gehlot-led Congress government. She says that of every Rs 100 earned, Rs 95 is spent in paying salaries, pensions and debt. The remaining Rs 5 is used for development work. This explains the rationale behind her government’s decision to outsource most services to the private sector. Today the state’s power distribution companies have debts of Rs 80,000 crore, and Rajasthan’s fiscal deficit is 3.1 per cent of its gross state domestic product (GSDP). With limited fiscal space to manouevre in, the Raje government will find it difficult to roll out more social schemes before the next assembly elections, unless it cuts back on spending.

“We need another five years before we can put Rajasthan on the path of progress. Currently, we are paying the debt of the previous Congress government,” says state Industry Minister Gajendra Singh.

Some in the state government feel that attracting more investment is the only way to fuel economic growth. In the past two and a half years, Rajasthan has announced labour, industry and legal reforms that helped the state sign investment proposals aggregating Rs 3.5 lakh crore during the recently-held Resurgent Rajasthan summit in Jaipur. Ms Raje believes that these investments could help create 250,000 jobs. Though she has reached out to industrialists in China, Singapore, Korea and Russia, the policies announced by her government are still taking root in the state.

“We will not announce anything new. In the next two and a half years our focus will be on  implementing all the reforms and policies announced by us,” the chief minister told Business Standard.