‘Road to hell is paved with good intentions’: Puri on freebie politics

New Delhi, August 4

At a time of competitive freebie politics across India, Union Urban Affairs and Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Friday said “even the road to hell is paved with good intentions”.

“Freebies are given with good intentions but this is a way paved to hell. Look at the levels of bankruptcy in many states and see what’s happening in some countries. We had to give 4 billion US dollar assistance to a neighbouring country,” Puri said, adding a subsidy had to be targeted at the most vulnerable. “It cannot get entrenched for all times to come because then you are killing competition. Targeted subsidy is what the ruling NDA government is doing,” he said.

Speaking as part of the government’s ongoing outreach to contrast 10 years of the Congress-led UPA (2004 to 2014) with nine years of the BJP-led NDA rule (2014 to 2023), Puri said India was on course to reclaim its historical place as a global economic powerhouse and broad indices required for the attainment of developed nation status would be in place by 2047.