Why Samrat Choudhary wants Bihar income tax-payers to give up free power
India Today · Amitabh Srivastava ·
Freebies that apparently helped the NDA secure its massive mandate are now beginning to pinch as the government confronts the mounting cost of welfarism
Freebies that apparently helped the NDA secure its massive mandate are now beginning to pinch as the government confronts the mounting cost of welfarism
On November 1, while inaugurating the two-day Pataliputra National Youth Parliament 2.0 in Patna, Bihar chief minister Samrat Choudhary made an appeal that brought into sharp focus the fiscal arithmetic of the state’s expanding welfare model.
Choudhary urged affluent and income tax-paying households to voluntarily surrender the benefit of 125 units of free electricity, saying the state was spending around Rs 23,000 crore annually on power subsidies, at a cost of roughly Rs 8,000-10,000 per household. The benefit, he pointed out, was available to the rich and poor alike. Those who could afford to pay, he suggested, should step aside and contribute towards Bihar’s development.
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