Mrs. Sonia Gandhi has alerted the Prime Minister and Finance Minister to the deep distress of the farmers of Vidharbha and Marathwada with unirrigated land who have been left high and dry with repeated droughts and been forced to take their lives. She did so during a visit to the Marathwada and Maharashtra areas of western India. She was advised to postpone her visit to the Vidarbha region where the misery of the farmers has been the greatest and where banks have had little role to play and the indigent farmers have been totally dependent on moneylenders who play havoc with the lives of land owners even though holdings are much above the presently prescribed limit of two hectares for debt relief in the Budget. Meanwhile Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan Governments have announced their own farm debt relief measures. Some more States could be expected to come up with similar announcements.

The Chairperson of the United Progressive Alliance led by the Congress, Mrs. Gandhi, has drawn the attention of the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister to the young General Secretary of the Congress, Mr. Rahul Gandhi, had asked them already to widen the scope of the debt relief and interest waiver and not limit to marginal farmers. She has added her own powerful voice to her son's pleadings even as she might appreciate that the Finance Minister could not, in his intervention and preliminary response to the demands by several MPs, refer to them by name and specially accede to the proposals by one powerful member of the Lok Sabha to alter his original scheme of things and give a new twist to his aid the farmer moves.

A few thousand farmers, heavily indebted to moneylenders and paying unbearable rates of interest, have so far been left out the scheme of debt relief from banks and cooperative societies only. For ages, the Indian farmers, with fragmented land holdings reduced in size generation after generation, has lived and died in extreme poverty, but the law of the land could permit occasional relief from land revenue, but the debt passed from father to son and entailed slavery in perpetuation. In Indira Gandhi's era, banks were asked to open their purse strings and grant loans at low rates of interest to craftsmen and farmers alike, but the population covered or benefited was minimal. It was expanded over the years, but the business of banking required exposure mainly to commerce and industry. The Central Budget of this year with an announcement of Rs.60,000 crores of debt relief to farmers gave the impression of opening the floodgates, as if Aladin's Lamp or the proverbial magic wand had been at work, especially because the revenue collections are setting a new record year after year and continue to be on the bounce. The Finance Ministers have the capability of giving the impression of great magnanimity and persuade many to hold their breath with a degree of awesome disbelief. But when the final calculations are revealed, it turns out that the enormous relief package will be spread over the next three or four years and those in genuine need of help cannot be entitled to the several benefits announced in the Budget with a flourish.

No wonder, the Opposition was quick to claim that all this was being done to set the scene for a snap General Election to the Lok Sabha and to try and woo the voters in a number of States going to the polls between now and early next year. This has been promptly denied because the Government is aware that much more needs to be done to win over the farmer in great misery and it cannot be done overnight.

The demands for grants have been approved so that the Government can utilize the funds in the treasury until the Budget is finally approved some time in May and by then a good few amendments to tax proposals will have to be worked out. Raising the income tax limit has pleased people in towns and cities and dearness allowance of 6 per cent for Central Government employees has pleased many, but what is eagerly awaited is the Pay Commission report: the expectations are 10 to 15 per cent increase in pay scales and that is bound to cost the exchequer a pretty penny-thousands of crores of rupees plus an equal amount for the State Governments and public sector undertakings. The Pay Commission could be expected to merge the existing dearness allowance in the basic pay while laying down the new pay scales. But one principle laid down by the previous Pay Commission was that whenever the dearness allowance reached 50 per cent of the basic pay, it would have to be merged in the basic pay to give some extra mileage to government employees in their remuneration. A considerable amount of money will be released and high spending in the Holi season could perhaps give some push to the sluggish economy.

But all that does not take the farmer into account, although the Government could claim that a fair proportion of employees have families back home in the villages and they could plough some of the money they receive into agriculture as Bihar and a number of backward areas in all States live on what is popularly called the money order economy: remittances not only from overseas but money orders living and working in cities. But is anyone buying that argument? Not yet, even if the argument cannot be overlooked altogether.

It is true that the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme offering work for 100 days in a year to a member of the totally unemployed family has now been extended to all the 650 odd districts of the country, but its impact varies from State to State. This scheme also takes up a number of watershed projects and small irrigation projects by digging up and lining ponds to try to provide water for parched lands which cover more than one-third of the Indian landmass. According to one estimate, nearly 63 million hectares all over India are wasteland. How much of it will benefit from the NREG Scheme and in how many years has not yet been assessed, but it is known that outcomes from the large sums of money are not commensurate with expectations as the leakage of funds from the Centre to the States down to the Zila Parishads, talukas and panchayat levels are enormous and in some cases barely 10 per cent is available for all rural development work.

There are a number of Ministries at the Centre and in the States engaged in rural welfare. There is no doubt duplication of work because departments and Ministries have to be created to accommodate coalition partners and meet their political aspirations. There are also a large number of non governmental organizations, several of which are doing excellent work, especially those run by women, but a large number of them are known to be incompetent and some even bogus. The Planning Commission and planning outfits in the States are expected to monitor the utilization of funds provided at several points during a five year plan, especially during the pre-budget formulation of annual plans of all departments and the States. How successful these various exercises are is difficult to determine, but it is process of checks and balances. The Comptroller and Auditor General is a strong monitoring arena, but its reports are often ignored by the concerned departments, if not even delayed.

Until there is better or fuller implementation and timely execution of projects to avoid cost overruns, the "chalta hai" system will remain in vogue and poor hapless farmers will continue to languish and die.