Spend It Like Shinde. But…

As Maharashtra assembly elections draw close, the BJP-Shinde Sena-Ajit Pawar NCP governing alliance has gone on an overdrive. The Eknath Shinde-led cabinet has passed over 150 decisions in the last four meetings, at a speed that would shame even ChatGPT. For every social or economic ill, vatap, or distribution, is the solution Shinde seems to think the best — never mind the state’s strained coffers or the state of governance.There’s ₹50 per day per cow as an aid to keepers; free bus rides for old women; kitchen utensils and saris for poor women; kits for construction workers; salary hike for madrasa teachers; land plots for trusts owned or run by politicians.Of course, many announcements may not see the light of day, since they have not been provided for in the budget. But that’s not deterred the govt from hiring social media influencers to make these decisions go viral.There’s more: long-pending cash compensation against crop failures of previous years in different districts, which is being hurriedly deposited in farmers’ accounts. And the Mukhyamantri Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana, the scheme the Mahayuti alliance is betting heavily on to win the polls. It is a direct lift from the ‘ladli behna’ scheme introduced by Shivraj Singh Chouhan in Madhya Pradesh. It assures ₹1,500 per month to women beneficiaries whom the CM calls his favourite sisters.Opposition says elections to Maharashtra assembly were not held with Haryana and J&K largely due to this scheme; to make sure women get at least 3-4 instalments before they go to vote. Hope is, cash will douse their anger. Will the gambit work? The jury’s still out.Shinde announced the scheme on Aug 15, two months after Mahayuti received a severe drubbing in Lok Sabha elections. Enrolments began instantly. And money flowed into accounts right away.As of date, about 19mn women have got two-three instalments; another 5mn are waiting for approval of their applications and once that happens, they will get the money with arrears from Aug. The scheme would leave state coffers poorer by ₹46,000cr.Lok Sabha elections saw the Maha-Aghadi alliance of Congress, NCP (Sharad Pawar) and Shiv Sena (UBT) win about 45% votes, about two percentage points more than Mahayuti. In terms of parliamentary seats, the former won 31, the latter 17. With cash doles to women, Mahayuti wants to bridge this gap, particularly in the rural parts where the vote-difference was more glaring.The task is uphill. For one, the anger and disillusionment among different communities have persisted. Two, caste support for both the alliances is fractured and can’t be taken for granted. Three, the economic pain is severe and can’t be managed by the announcements because some of them will only fructify, if at all, post-polls. Four, the Ladki Bahin scheme’s benefits are being offset by falling prices of soybean and cotton, whose fresh arrivals have begun.Farmers across the state are upset over rising production costs and sluggish commodity prices. Now, they are finding it hard to get women labourers for cotton picking as the harvest season clashes with the rush to enrol for the Ladki Bahin scheme, derailing the work.Other broader social issues too persist: the Maratha unrest over reservation; tribal anger over the tweaking of Forest Rights Act; Dalit resentment over a perceived attack on the constitutional ethos; the direct and indirect tirade against Muslim populations.Meanwhile, rattled by the flood of freebies, state finance department seems to have pressed the alarm bells. The ₹46,000cr Ladki Bahin scheme will account for 1% of the gross state domestic product and 9% of the total revenue receipts for 2024-25. Add to that the distribution of free kitchen utensils and kits to women in the construction sector, and you have a massive burden on the already strained coffers.In the 2024-25 budget, state’s fiscal deficit stood at ₹1.1L cr. In June’s legislature session, state govt approved supplementary demands to the budget to the tune of ₹96,610cr. Total fiscal deficit of the state is ₹2L cr, or 4.6% of GSDP.While women are happy with the monetary support, larger issues concerning their participation in labour sector, high unemployment among youth, expensive higher education, and unmitigated rural distress with high indebtedness and continued farmers’ suicides have turned a large section of the state’s population despondent.The latest PLFS data (2023-24) says women’s labour force participation is 28.5% for urban and 76.2% for rural Maharashtra. These are women either seeking work or already working, but not necessarily with financial returns. Of the total women workers engaged in some or other work in rural parts, only 9.6% are in salaried jobs, the average salary being ₹8,527. Urban salaried women take home ₹10,953 a month. Nearly 40% women in the workforce in rural Maharashtra are casual workers. Their average daily wage is a paltry ₹210.Similar schemes exist in Karnataka, Jharkhand and Telangana. Kerala has ducked the model and tried to raise the participation of women in labour force through the 5mn-strong Kudumbashree collective, investing in productive assets, diverse services, small-scale business ventures and agriculture and allied sector activities, along with processing and value addition. In its silver jubilee year, Kudumbashree seems to offer a better template for uplifting and empowering women in the country.The writer is with People’s Archive of Rural India.