Budget 2014: 'Fiscally prudent' Jaitley okays Rs 200 cr Patel statue, war and police memorials

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley may have grumbled about the lack of fiscal elbow room available to his government due to UPA profligacy, but that did not stop him from announcing three memorial construction projects to a tune of Rs 350 crore. The first is a Rs 200-crore initial allocation for the mega Statue of Unity Project that was part of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s campaign pitch. The proposed 600 foot statue is expected to dwarf the Statue of Liberty which stands at a diminutive 305 feet.. [caption id=“attachment_1612305” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Screenshot from IBN-Live video.[/caption] The announcement of a Rs 200-crore government handout for a BJP project did garner some outrage on social media , especially given the somewhat more modest allocations for projects such as the girl child literacy project. That much of this large sum will come from the public exchequer at a time when Jaitley himself is seeking fiscal consolidation raises more troubling questions. Meanwhile, the Finance Minister also announced setting up a War Memorial, and a National Police Memorial for which he made allocations of Rs 100 crore and Rs 50 crore respectively. He said, “The country is deeply indebted to the officers and the jawans of the armed forces for having made huge sacrifices to defend its honour. In doing so a very large number of them gave up their lives. It is a privilege for the nation to erect a befitting memorial in their memory. I am happy to announce that a War Memorial will be constructed in the Princes Park. It will be supplemented by a War Museum.” The National Police Memorial, he said, will be a tribute to officers and the jawans of the police forces, including the central armed police forces, who have sacrificed their lives in the line of duty. No one will grudge of men and women in uniform their memorials, but a gargantuan statue of Patel is hardly as much a pressing priority as women safety, which also received 200 crores. And is it really more important than village empowerment (Rs 100 crore) or the handloom sector (Rs 50 crores)? Those comparisons seem all the more egregious when we consider the estimated expense of the statue itself: a whopping Rs 2500 crore. Many more hefty budget allocations will be required to cover that final sum.