Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank has announced the creation of four new districts, winning a thunderous applause from the workers of his BJP.
The populous measure comes a part of Nishank’s strategy to drum up the ruling party’s support in the coming assembly elections due early next year.
That apart, Nishank will surely have to overcome the financial implication of this announcement also as the move is likely to create an extra burden of over Rs 200-300 crore on the state exchequer which has not recovered fully yet from the implementation of the sixth pay commission.
But the creation of four new districts was certainly not the only announcement made by Nishank, he also announced a hike of pension for freedom fighters from Rs 6000 to Rs 11000 to match it with that of Haryana along with a slew of other announcements.
But some of bureaucrats were not impressed. “Where is the money? What will happen to the FRBM Act?,” commented a top government official.
It was for the first time that four new districts are being created in the hill state after its formation on Nov 9, 2000. Experts said there was no hurry to create new districts as the infrastructure and other facilities in all the 13 districts have not improved much.
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During the past 3 months, Nishank had already made hundreds of such announcements without chalking out a clear roadmap for generating additional revenue.
During his Antyodaya Vikas Yatra which began three months ago, Nishank made the government’s commitment to upgrade as many as 147 junior high schools and new colleges and inter-colleges.
Nishank has also committed that nearly 50,000 new jobs will be created this year. In addition to this, the BJP government has promised to provide pensions to the aged widows and war widows, besides scholarship when the total budget from social welfare department is Rs 500 crore.
“These announcements require huge funds. I don’t think we can do that at least in the next six months,” commented another official.
The main worry of these officials is about the rising fiscal deficit that touched 5 percent during the current fiscal. “We’ve to bring it down to 3 percent of the GSDP in the next one to two years. Can we do it in such circumstances,” he asked.