Freebies a mockery of democracy: JA Chowdary
Says political parties least bothered about possibility of executing populist schemes; Techies, educated youth, who enjoy fruits of democracy, should exercise their vote
JA Chowdary, Founder of Lets Vote Foundation
Hyderabad It’s time for elections at the Centre and several States in India. The IT employees and most of the educated youth enjoy the fruits of democracy, but they don’t exercise their vote. Because of this, democracy is getting cracks in the country, says JA Chowdary, Founder of Lets Vote Foundation, urging the public to fill up the cracks quickly and strengthen the largest democracy in the world.
He earlier served as Chairman of the Board of Software Technologies Parks of India (STPI), Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Chennai. He says, “Now-a-days, every party is following the model of giving everything for free to form the government. Each political party is making the promises of freebies whether it is possible to fulfill or not. There must be a limit on the expenditure on freebies by the governments.”
Chowdary explains, “We are paying taxes to the government to have better quality education, healthcare facilities, roads & buildings, infrastructure, border security and helping the farmers in creating good supply chain. About 90 per cent of the farmers are putting their produce on the roads due to lack of food processing units and storage facilities in the villages and many are committing suicides.”
Citing a Chinese proverb “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”, he said: “The political leaders are doing in reverse. The farmers in some villages are not doing cultivation and declared crop holiday due to inadequate labour. By giving free ration, the governments are incentivising not to work and destroying the rural framework by making people lazy.”
“Most of the State governments are misusing tax payers’ money for wrong reasons. The political leaders are not giving freebies from their own pockets or party funds. How can they distribute the public money for them to get elected? They must use the public funds for providing better roads and infrastructure. Only one-tenth of the State Budget shall be allowed to spend on the freebies,” Chowdary suggested.
He further said, “The youth must crack down on the freebies being announced by the political parties during the ongoing election campaigns. After 30 years, their children should not complain that our parents could not correct this mockery of democracy. For the past 75 years, we have somehow safeguarded the democracy. Today, the basic foundation of the country is at stake.”
