It refers to Prime Minister Narendra Modi launching Saubhagya scheme to provide free electricity to all about four crore families below poverty line (BPL). It is not proper to make people habitual of freebies. Instead employment-opportunities should be generated. Already needy people are being provided money through MGNREGA. Providing such freebies hurt the same very people indirectly through price-increase of government-administered commodities like LPG. It is time that subsidies and freebies may be drastically cut if not fully abolished so that GST may be reduced for basic needs like also including services which gradually witnessed hike from very initial 5-per cent to now 18-per cent. However, now since announcement has been made, benefits of freebies and subsidies including now free electricity should be given only to families with parents having up to two children. Moreover, free electricity should be provided on experimental basis initially for one year only.
Madhu Agrawal
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
