The typical poll promises by different parties in different words but similar in content and intent include income support, care of pregnant women, farm loan waivers, cost-free laptops and midday meals, pensions and even subsidized sanitary napkins. They do not feel need to mention from where they would mobilize resources or even clarify that the treasury is already heavily laden with obligation of salaries and wages as well as subsistence for twenty or more years of those non contributors to society due to lack of physical ability after their retirement. The burden of their pension payment is huge. Others have to bear the costs.

According to estimates the government spent Rs.1.66 lakh crore last year on salaries and paid Rs. 1.68 lakh crore, as pension to retired employees. There were 2.15 crore employees of the centre and states excluding defence services. It does not include semi-permanent or casual work force employed by contractors who get assigned the actual works. The last Administrative Commission headed by the former chief minister of Karnataka Veerappa Moiley made no recommendations to reduce burden of numbers and improve efficiency.

For years, Jawaharlal Nehru was blamed for economic ills and evils due to his adopting a model of depending on public sector for planned economic development but without analyzing the causes of failure. The 79 public sector units of 121 created for various activities turned into white elephants as they were operated as extension of government department and not as commercial ventures. Most of them were converted into employment centres to meet demands of politics.

The steel minister Vasant Sathe was horrified to learn of causes and consequences of losses in Bokaro Steel Plant in 1981. He got the matter investigated as Koreans were offering their steel products at twenty per cent less prices than Indian steel even though Koreans were importing coal from India. India and Korea had same German technology for their five million tonnes units as both bought from same firm. Korea manufactured 5 million tonnes steel to full capacity but Bokaro was unable to produce more than 11 lakh tonnes. The investigation pinpointed that India plant had 42000 employees while Koreans managed with 11353 workers to run their steel plant to full capacity production.

The India bureaucratic structure does not have intent, inclination or efficiency to work as the constitutional provision under Article 310 guarantees permanency of job to them. At the most they can be suspended to receive half their salaries without working. The classic example of impact of permanency was experience of the Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in March 1976. She had a habit of getting out of her chair in her South Block office whenever she needed to brood over some ticklish issue. In March 1976 she saw the fascinating drama of a man attempting to trap a monkey roaming around at the backside of the Cabinet Secretary’s office in corner of the Rashtrapati Bhavan estate. She got the trapper in her office to learn more where the man got training. She asked VIdhyaben Shah, then President of the New Delhi Municipal Council to give Murari a job with NDMC rather than pay him per monkey trapped. Murari was happy to be on the pay role and worked diligently. However he stopped catching monkey the day after he was made permanent employee.

On several complaints Mrs. Shah called for an explanation. Murari told her that God Hanuman had come to him in his dream on the night he was made permanent and threatened him to annihilate all his descendents since he was harming his (Hamunman’s) descendents. “Madam, in face of the divine injunction I cannot continue my job.” He promised to get it done by hired hands by paying per monkey trapped. Vidhyaben was told that neither can she terminate his services nor can she force him to perform duties for which he was given the employment to work.

Do wise men in different parties who compile the liberal list of enticements for the electorate ever realize that given the lack of attitude, inclination and efficiency these promises cannot be delivered? Akhilesh Yadav had a major success in the 2012 UP assembly polls as people of his state settled in Punjab as farm workers for five or more years returned home to get free laptop for their school going kids. In the 2017 elections, Yadav could get only 65 seats against 224 in earlier election as his free laptops failed to deliver the prosperity that farm labour believed would come along with the laptop.

The successive governments have increased the minimum support price for agriculture products. However 80 per cent of marketed products had come from big farmers as 88 per cent among the farming community who are small or marginal do not produce more to have surplus for marketing to realize benefits of increased MSP. On the contrary they end up paying more for their other daily needs due to spiraling impact of increased prices of food products. Even write offs of the unpaid debts have not helped as their cooperatives hesitate to entertain fresh loan demands. Agro products do not depend on loans alone. They also need other inputs and the treasuries are left with nothing even to hide their bottoms. Most observers denounce the galore of promises without going into impact such promises of free lunch cause. The manifesto with all the promises remains only on paper. Voters know it so also promise makers.