Backtracking on another poll promise? MP youth have not yet received unemployment allowance promised by Kamal Nath

In the run-up to the state assembly election in Madhya Pradesh (MP), the Congress party and incumbent Chief Minister Kamal Nath had promised an unemployment allowance of rupees 10,000 per month to the youth of the state. However, even after two months of being in power, Kamal Nath seems doing nothing about the promise.

Congress party had earlier promised Rs 10,000 as unemployment allowance for one young member per family for a period of three years. Not only that a sum of Rs 51,000 would be provided to families at the time of a girl’s marriage. Besides this, Congress’ manifesto includes a provision for an amount of Rs 2.50 lakh for the construction of houses of landless people. Nevertheless, all these promises are still engraved in the manifesto only, though Kamal Nath has been enjoying the power for almost 2 months.

In terms of implementing poll promises, Kamal Nath has shown a shoddy track record so far. The prime example of this is the farm loan waiver. According to Jagran report, many farmers in the state of MP have complained that instead of the entire loan waiver, they are getting a waiver of just Rs. 25 and Rs. 300. In the run-up to the election, the Congress party had promised a full loan waiver but after securing the mandate, it seems to have betrayed the people of the state.

According to the Department of Agriculture, there are around 2, 57,600 potential farmers who are eligible for the loan waiver scheme; but a handful of farmers are benefitted from the scheme. This incident underlines the hasty implementation of the farmer loan waiver scheme. Although the state government under Kamal Nath implemented the loan waiver scheme, it has a lot of strings attached. 

While Kamal Nath never stops boasting about his ‘achievements’; the reports show a contrary story. Earlier today, speaking at ‘Jan Aakansha Rally’, the ‘epitome of hypocrisy’ stated, “The first thing I did, after assuming the charge as the CM, was waiving off the farm loan. Today is 3 Feb, till 3 March we will waive off the farm loan of 30 Lakh farmers. After 3 March, we will waive off farm loan of rest of the 15 Lakh farmers.”

However, at the same time, a farmer family of Madhya Pradesh threatened the state government of committing “mass suicide” after their names appeared on the state government’s loan waiver list even though they do not have any dues or have loans far smaller than the ones that are listed. Earlier, a farmer of Khandwa district in MP committed suicide after he failed to qualify for the loan waiver scheme announced by the Kamal Nath’s government in Madhya Pradesh. 

The promise of a farm loan waiver can be cited as a good example of how Congress makes populist promises despite being aware of the nuances of it. The loan waiver scheme is turning out to be less about helping farmers and more about a gimmick for 2019 polls. Earlier, the implementation of farm loan waiver has been a disaster with very few benefitting; now the unemployment allowance added into the long list of ‘achievements’.