Time and again the country has seen that various agencies and departments within the same state are not able to coordinate with each other, interact with each other hence there is considerable delay in delivery of essential services and or escalation in time and cost. This problem becomes even bigger if we talk about coordination between a state government and the central government. A typical example of this is rescue operations during a natural calamity. If this was not enough then add a lot of politics into this and what we have on the platter is a big disaster. Yes, the same types that we are so used to watching. The country hasn’t forgotten the fact that truckloads of relief material were waiting to move during Uttarakhand floods because President of Indian National Congress and her son were yet to flag off the trucks.
However, an example of the state government and the central government working together to fulfil the mandate they have been given is seen in Maharashtra. Since the last five years, both these bodies have worked so efficiently and seamlessly that the development work that would usually take decades to plan was not just started but was commissioned as well within 5 years.
These facts can be compared based on authentic and verifiable data. 1.2 million homes were supposed to be built in Maharashtra state under the Aawas Yojana scheme for rural poor housing. This objective was completed 2 years before the due date. Like I said before we aren’t used to achieving targets, forget about being on time and cost limit. Another such example is the Mundra Scheme where 100% of households in Maharashtra now have access to a bank account as 2,59,66,776 accounts were opened in the state. Cumulatively these accounts have a net balance of INR 6,199 Cr approx as well.
Similar is the case with Mudra Loan beneficiaries which total to about 1.05 crores with a total loan disbursal amount of INR 54,000 crores. With such a scheme lacking earlier I wonder how the small businesses used to manage their credit requirements. That’s when you figure out the ill’s of money lenders were so prevalent in the country. No need to mention the harassment and high cost of credit attached to this. We don’t realise the effect Mudra loan has had on the social welfare and job creation front. Nobody likes to borrow for getting harassed. Rural folks do appreciate this for both the central and the state government efforts. No wonder the CM has won every election held in the state since 2014 and has delivered a bigger mandate in the 2019 general elections as well for the BJP.
Under the Atal Pension Yojana launched by the Prime Minister during his first term as PM, Maharashtra has been one of the biggest beneficiaries. 7,58,695 workers are now availing the benefits thereof. If you ask me about a recent example of what happens when two different governments are in power in state and centre and one of them is into politics and not governance? Then I draw your attention to the plight of the farmers in Madhu’s Pradesh who are not availing the PM Kisan Nidhi Yojana benefits because their state government did not opt for it. This had no financial burden on the state. All they had to do was send a list of beneficiary farmers to the centre and money would have gotten credited to the farmer accounts directly but then politics came in between. Whereas the farmers in Maharashtra are enjoying the direct credit of pension from the centre.
Similar efficiency gains and committed efforts can be seen in other fields like farm Sadak Yojana which aims for providing all-weather piccata roads to the rural folks. The funding agency, in this case, is the centre but the implementation agency is the state. When the central government decided to work on the ease of doing business rankings then many of the parameters on which the country is gauged were to be completed by the states as well. For eg: access to electricity or the land reforms. These rankings do not cover the entire country but cover the states of Delhi and Maharashtra. Data clearly points out that the Maharashtra state-aligned very well with the central government’s vision and improved its ranking manifold.
The best part about these things is the awareness of the new age voters. They are understanding these issues and are voting based on them instead of the age-old politics of regional caste factors.
