Tamil Nadu Chief Minister O Panneerselvam today made a strong case in favour of subsidies and freebies and said those who spoke against such schemes were only betraying the poor.
In his reply to the general discussion on Budget for 2015-16 in the state assembly, the Chief Minister wanted to know "if subsidies were wasteful expenditure" without mentioning the name of any member or party.
The PMK has been steadily targeting the government on its freebie schemes. It supports free of cost schemes only for select sectors including education and agriculture.
Also Read
There has also been critical analysis of Tamil Nadu's freebie schemes in sections of media.
The AIADMK regime is implementing several freebies including free laptops for students, milch cows, goats, mixies and grinders.
"Is free power to weavers and farmers a wasteful expenditure?" he asked, listing other subsidies like those on electricity and diesel to benefit poor and middle classes.
Bus fare in state-run transport corporations are fixed on a lower level only due to subsidy on diesel, the chief minister claimed and added "Is this unnecessary?"
"On the one hand, it is demanded that transport fares and power tariff should not be hiked and at the same time they call subsidies to offset such losses due to non-increase as waste."
Stating that Rs 36,507 crore was being given as financial assistance for several schemes, he said out of this Rs 11,798 crore was being given for local bodies. "Can we consider this as unnecessary spending?" he asked.
Giving elaborate statistics on spending for welfare schemes like MNREGA (Rs.5,248 crore), green houses for poor (Rs.1,260 crore), health (Rs.1,224 crore), girl child protection scheme (Rs.140 crore), he asked if these were wasteful expenditure and wanted to know if these schemes should be discontinued.
"Only because of distribution of free of cost laptops do poor students get computer education in state and government- aided schools," he said.
"That is why Tamil Nadu is rated first in computer literacy in India."
"Hence, people who raise questions should specify after a study on what spendings are unnecessary. If they however generalise and term all such allocations [for freebies] as wasteful it will only confirm that they are betraying the poor people.
