Market access is critical for farmers to get better deal; cash transfers will ensure even poor get fair share of subsidies. Reviving the power sector also needs market reform and sectors like oil and mining can’t get a boost without this.
That prime minister Narendra Modi managed to pull off a second Lok Sabha victory despite the economy—especially agriculture—being in trouble and without enough jobs getting created is as much a tribute to his ability to change the narrative through the Balakot strikes as it is to the plethora of successful pro-poor measures he took over the last five years. Over Rs 2.3 lakh crore was distributed to the poor via DBT over the past five years, over 5 crore persons got subsidised life insurance and 13 crore accident insurance, 6 crore got free LPG connections, 1 crore subsidised houses were built, as were close to 10 crore toilets … even if the economy had grown by 8-9%, the benefits may not have trickled down to the very poor for several years, but with Modi’s successful anti-poverty schemes, they benefitted much faster; it can’t be a coincidence that the BJP did well in most poor states.
Source: Financial Express
