There are 1,85,84,153 rice cards in TN. Rs 1000 to each card holder = Rs 1858 crores/month or 22,300 crores pa. TN budget expense for last year was roughly Rs 3 lakh crores. This bloats the expense by 7% and doubles the revenue deficit tncsc.tn.gov.in/html/pds.htm
We can foresee another year of slow tax receipts, so one can foresee debt over hang to increase from 5 lakh crores by another 10% in the next 3 years just due to this single entitlement. To compare, the entire pensions budget of TN is Rs 30,000 crores annually.
Fine print: This will not be distributed through DBT bank transfers. It will be disbursed as cash at the ration shop upon production of the ration card and biometric verification. Local partymen act as gatekeepers and take a 10% cut. Already, a revenue stream of Rs 180 crore pm
has been tied up for party functionaries. That's roughly Rs 2.25 lakhs per month per polling booth. Assuming 5 agents who take in 50% of the skim-off, each polling agent comfortably makes 20,000 bucks per month, just to go hang out at a ration shop for 3-4 hours for 10 days
The remaining skim-off will make it up the party ranks. More than electorate, this is really going to energize polling agents and ground workers.
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