On June 10, while addressing BJP MPs in the Central Hall of Parliament, Prime Minister Narendra Modi sounded most triumphant about Kerala. He said Suresh Gopi's victory, BJP's first Parliament win in Kerala, was a fitting tribute to the sacrifices made by hundreds of 'Karyakartas' in Kerala. The words then sounded like Modi's equivalent of a sportsman's fist pump.
There was a belief that this gratitude would spill over into Nirmala Sitharaman's budget speech. But thanks were reserved exclusively for Chandrababu Naidu's Andhra Pradesh and Nitish Kumar's Bihar.
The finance minister was too busy trying to coax a smile out of Naidu and Kumar to spare a thought for Kerala's specific concerns or needs. There was not even a remote acknowledgement that Kerala was leading the country's progress towards achieving Sustainable Development Goals.
Sitharaman would have possibly even developed a fatigue for Kerala. Ever since she had taken over as the Union finance minister, Kerala has been dumping before her the same old fiscal demands: Increase borrowing limit, withdraw the retrospective inclusion of Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board (KIIFB) and Kerala Social Security Pensions Ltd (KSSPL) while fixing Kerala's borrowing limit, special package of Rs 25,000 crore (Andhra Pradesh alone was given a special package of Rs 15,000 crore in this Budget), special capital investment support of Rs 5,000 crore for developing the Vizhinjam Port region, another Rs 5,000 crore to finance infrastructure projects like the tunnel road link between Kozhikode and Wayanad.
Kerala also wanted compensation for the Rs 6,000 crore it had invested for the NH66 land acquisition. Kerala was the only state in the country that had contributed 25 per cent of the land acquisition costs for NH development. In fact, Kerala was the only state in the country asked to contribute heavily if it wanted a highway. This time Kerala asked Sitharaman to consider this amount as additional capital expenditure and wanted sanction to borrow an additional Rs 6,000 crore in this financial year.
Not only did she ignore this but happily showered road projects on Bihar without any conditions like the one the Centre had set for Kerala. Patna-Purnea Expressway, Buxar-Bhagalpur Expressway, 'Bodhgaya, Rajgir, Vaishali and Darbhanga' spurs, and an additional 2-lane bridge over river Ganga at Buxar, all of this for Rs 26,000 crore. This is the very same government that was reluctant to spare money for land acquisition in Kerala.
Nonetheless, in addition to the employment incentive scheme and MSME-specific giveaways, Kerala could also make use of the corpus set apart exclusively for the infrastructure development of states. A provision of Rs 1.5 lakh crore long-term interest-free loan has been made available this year also to support the states in their resource allocation. Kerala is eligible to get Rs 1500 crore this fiscal under this scheme.
The problem is, a large chunk of these 50-year interest-free loans would be used for land-related reforms. Most of the next-generation reforms that Sitharaman has mentioned in the budget - digital survey, cadastral mapping, land registry and even "Bhu-Aadhaar", which in Kerala is called the 'Unique Thandaper' scheme - have either been implemented or have already been initiated in Kerala.
It looks like Kerala is being punished for being ahead of time.
