The UPA government led by the Congress just completed three years in office. And in expected lines, in the 'Report to the People,' the government has expressed its satisfaction and boasts of achievements in various sectors especially education. It has highlighted achievements like creation of five lakh classrooms, providing 10.52 crore people with mid-day meal and firming up plans to extend IT infrastructure to 4752 schools. The report also mentions the launch of low cost computing device ‘Aakash’ and setting up of setting up of central universities and technical institutes. On the health sector, the report talks of no wild polio cases in the country since 2011 owing to the immunisation drive. Talking about the welfare of workers, it said more than 2.85 crore families are being provided health insurance cover under rashtriya swasthiya bima yojana, out of which 52 lakh families have been issued smart cards. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asserted that poverty had declined at twice the rate than that before the tenure of the UPA government, and despite an adverse economic environment, India continued to be the second fastest growing economy at the rate of 7 per cent.( The PM must be joking!) But it was the UPA chairman Sonia Gandhi who sounded in an election mode as she urged her party members to brace up for the 2014 General Elections for she knows despite the tall claims made by her government, all is not well with this UPA government. From facing scandals and controversies both in and outside the parliament, to drawing the ire of the common man for its inability to control price rise and inflation, the government has faltered in almost every sphere. The economy is not in a very good shape. Rupee has touched all time low against the dollar (it’s 56 vis- a-vis dollar at present), the petrol price has been hiked, the highest in several months, price rise has rocketed sky high and the aam-admi is running from one roof to other to survive for the bare minimum. And that’s not all - the national carrier (Air India) is in doldrums, the pilots are continuing to give a harrowing time to the government and more importantly to the passengers by going on strike every now and then without serving any notice with the government acting as a mute spectator. It’s unfortunate that the government is still clueless about Air India. The inept handling of issues is yet another major failure of this government. Call it the arrogance of some of our ministers, over confidence or bad advice, the Manmohan Singh government has unnecessarily exaggerated things which could have been managed with ease. From Lokpal and baba Ramdev to the recent NCERT cartoon controversy, this government has made of toon of itself by making things murkier. The Ambedkar cartoon controversy is the latest one. As noted columnist Anil Dharkar points out, “we are always in the rush to ban things at its nip without even looking at things in the right perspective.” While it may claim to be the pioneer of Right to Information to be introduced in the country, it should also take the blame of curbing the Right to freedom of expression as there are numerous occasions where the citizens have felt their rights are being curbed unnecessarily. A stricture on internet freedom is one of them. This is all about the performance of the government. Even the conduct of the ministers in these years is not up to the mark. While some ministers are basking in the glory(I wouldn’t name the ministers) of ‘I am the best’, some are still struggling to clear their name from scams, not to miss out the head of the government(read ManmohanSingh) who still prefers to maintain his golden silence. For him, silence is still golden. If we talk of deliverance, then sorry this government has failed to deliver in these three years. Congress ka saath aam-admi ke saath is no longer true. So, I would give thumbs down to these three years of UPA government.
Alessandro Marconi joined Hanna McLean's group© 2013 Created by Arne Grauls.
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