Good as gold? Tough

It’s turning into a steeplechase of sorts for TN CM Vijay. Made to run to stack up the numbers, there’s now the floor test to clear. Presuming he passes with flying colours, alas, still no time to catch his breath. For, on his debut, CM’s staring at a mighty bill, where he’ll likely spend a third of what TN earns, to service TVK’s manifesto promises.

It’s quite a list, estimated to cost ₹1L cr a year, while TN’s total revenue is around ₹3.3L cr. The maths is simple. There’s a gold guinea (8g) to new brides – that’s about ₹1,22,700 current rate. A gold ring for every newborn – about 8.4L live births annually in TN. Schooling is incentivised – ₹15k to moms, of every child, every year, to ensure her kids don’t drop out. So, a mother of three schoolgoers will receive ₹45k per year? There’s plenty hard cash in flow – ₹2,500 for women (around 1.6cr), ₹4,000 to jobless graduates (around 7.5L), ₹15k to farmers (around 80L), ₹10k to farm labour, and on it goes. There’s health insurance, loans and stipends aplenty – also for college-goers. Not a first, but this is particularly misdirected. For, state just ends up sponsoring education in pricey private colleges of appalling standards, which produce unemployable graduates. Why not, instead, fill the 40% faculty vacancies in state colleges?

A very generous manifesto – there’s even MSP promised for fish – and much of it may be ‘needed’, but there’s that little blip: Where will the money come from? TVK doesn’t say. Gold’s on a runaway trip, US-Israel-Iran’s war is expected to continue on-off through the year. Given uncertainty of supply, six LPG cylinders a year are the stuff of dreams. An economic miracle if Vijay pulls it off – or else, he’s looking at either empty coffers, or empty promises.

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