VOX POPULI
by
S Kamat
as
Aam Admi
Issue: 211
Date: 24.07.2017
Contents:
1.
The Indian Economy In
Need Of Rejuvenation
2.
Official Cars In
Government
3. Parrikar’s Duplicity On Casinos
4. An Interesting Insight On The Candidates For
President and VP
5. Ecological Risk at Miramar Beach in Goa
6. CSJP Should Respect Administrative Action
7. BJP's Cow Lynching Agenda
8.
Demolition Notices On
Buildings In The Vicinity Of The SantaCruz Airport
9. China and Pakistan Outmaneuvering India's
Foreign Policy
The Indian
Economy In Need Of Rejuvenation
There is something
fundamentally wrong with the Indian economy and one can attribute it
among other factors to salary compensation particularly of government employees
that has been implemented over the last 15 years or so. From the 5th Pay
Commission the rot set in which has continued to the present day when the 7th
Pay Commission has been just rolled out. The government in India is the major
employer. Though the Pay Commissions are meant for Central government
employees, it is made applicable to State government and quasi-government
employees as well. This makes the Pay Commission pay scales
applicable to a large part of the employees of the country. It also has a
spinoff effect on the rise in salaries of the employees in the private sector.
There is a variant that we need to touch upon here and that is the IT -
Information Technology sector. Since the boom years of the late 1980's and 90's
the IT sector salaries have been on the rise in their attempt to
approximate the salaries that are paid in this sector in developed countries
particularly the US. However, as a trigger for inflation the government sector
employees, the large mass that they are, dominate the impact. Thus
at the top half of the jobs market that is rather elite the salaries are
indexed to the US Dollar while in the rest of the jobs the salaries are being
hiked because prices in the market are going up and cost of living is becoming
high. There is another category that seeks higher remuneration and that is our
legislators both of Parliament and that of the State Assemblies. Their argument
is that everyone has got a raise and it has been a long time since their
salaries were reviewed.
Now it is a known fact that people in government rarely work or it
is rare to see some people work. Therefore paying them beyond what work they
deliver is patently irregular. Thus you have lakhs of people with more money
than they need to live decently. This is what causes inflation as we are told
in the first principle of economic theory that more money chasing less
goods causes prices to go up. This is what has happened in the Indian economy.
The raises that the government sector employees, in this are included all
employees who got Pay Commission benefits either directly or indirectly,
got has not resulted in any increase in their productivity to put more
goods and services in the market. Neither has corruption gone down. It was
argued that if you pay employees more, they may perform better and also not
resort to corruption. But these beliefs have been proved completely untrue in
India. Not only that the excess money in people's hands has been finding its
way towards conspicuous consumption and to spiralling prices of real estate.
Though after demonetisation the prices of real estate across the country have
marginally stabilised.
To resolve this there
is no way we can impound the salaries being given to employees nor can we
reduce the take home pay now. Impounding was an option at the time when the Pay
Commissions were being implemented to have the increase compulsorily put in
long term savings instruments so that the money supply in the economy could be
controlled. Since it was not done we cannot re-visit that option. But the
government can start serious negotiations with the unions of government
employees on delivering productivity at the workplace. With this one could give
80% of the present salary as guaranteed minimum and the rest 20% indexed to a
productivity scale as appropriate to the job. Not only that as a carrot the
variable could be as high as 40% making an employee eligible for 120% of his
salary if he performs exceptionally at the job. One hates to be pessimistic,
but in India a projection would be that this salary band would set at 80-85% of
salary. Thus every month more than 15% of the salary budget would be sucked out
of the economy. Most private sector entities and the informal sector already
work on some kind of an incentivised wage system and should have no problem in
accepting this proposition. This would also have a salubrious effect on the
economy.
The rise in prices
that we have been seeing across the board in the last few years is because of
the excess money supply as we have positioned earlier. Added to that in
agricultural commodities be it pulses or vegetables we have the factor of a
vagrant monsoon which leads to sharp variations in prices. Like with the
monsoon playing truant in the last few years it was sugar that had peaked and
then year before last it was pulses that went through the roof. This was
interspersed by random peaks reached for onions and potatoes though milder and
lately tomatoes. Last year with a better than average monsoon, prices of pulses
crashed. Thankfully sugar has been holding the fort. Even when prices
of agricultural commodities rise most people would not mind if the farmers
were benefited. But it has been seen with the swing in prices farmers have been
at the receiving end and suicides have been on the increase. It is the
distribution chain from farmer to market that is making money when prices rise.
The private oligopolist buying structure of farm produce has been benefited
disproportionately. The wholesalers and retailers have been offering a fait
accompli to buyers in the market - take it or leave it.
For farmers to get
remunerative prices the government has to work out a buffer price scheme that
will factor in times of shortages as well as surpluses and provide a guaranteed
price to the farmers. As for perishable products a cold chain process from farm
to market has to be put in place in those areas which supply a large part of
the produce. This will reduce wastage and also give better quality of produce
to customers.
The government over the last two decades has been actively
pursuing a policy of encouraging the movement of people from the rural areas
into our towns and cities. This policy is based on a UN report that rapid
urbanisation is good for the developing economies. You can hear echoes of this
in some of Arun Jaitley's speeches where he exhorts people to move to the
cities. This is in fact is a wrong policy since if people leave our rural areas
then who will be there to support agriculture. Not only that by people moving
to our cities in large numbers, we will only increase our slums, promote
ghettoism and generate a massive strain on public services like water,
power, transportation and health. Resultant effect our cities will become
dirty, congested and the standard of living will drop drastically. Not only
that with lesser people in rural areas to support agriculture we will have shortages
of foodgrains and progressively famine. Sometimes the UN reports tend to be
biased towards the more developed Western economies and more often than not
authored by experts from these countries. Thus they tend to promote
consumerism, the belief that getting people into one place is then easier to
organise and manage infrastructure and support systems and the vacated rural
areas lend themselves better to organised farming. This kind of thing works for
their ethos and the large landholdings of individual farmers. But our societies
are different which will not accept these premises since our landholdings are
small, the ownership diverse and no corporate investments in agriculture exist
or are likely.
The distributor/retailer alliance also have been taking
advantage of the Indian psyche that has been prone to living with shortages for
generations making buyers desperate for supplies. This has been exploited to
the hilt by the trade to get customers to buy more than what they need so that
an artificial shortage is created and prices are managed to remain high. Here
again when it comes to agricultural commodities buyers would not mind paying
the higher prices if commensurately the quality and packaging of items is
improved. So if you are buying tomatoes at Rs. 20 per Kg. In good times or at
Rs. 100 per Kg. during scarcity you will find the quality in good times is
better than during scarcity where because of the scare in the latter times in
the name of tomatoes lower grade and sometimes unripe ones are sold and
buyers grab it thinking that the end of the world is at hand. In India there is
no value given to the higher price that you pay for a commodity. In contrast
abroad particular in the developed countries, the higher the price of
a commodity, the better will be its quality and packaging as also the
service that you are given in the buying process. The wholesalers and
traders in India are making merry in these times of ding-dong prices little
realizing that their days of reckoning are near with the big departmental
stores likely to take away a majority of their business. There are many
departmental stores that buy perishable produce and other commodities direct
from the farmers or supply source leading to better prices for the growers and
reasonable price and quality for the consumers.
At the other end of
the scale in our economy it is industry which is lagging behind as many say
because of a sluggish worldwide economy leading to less buoyant exports and
also because of lack of investment. We cannot much do anything about the world
economy but local production can be stimulated to revive industry. The major
stumbling block to this are the NPA’s created by some industries with the banks
which at various estimates is put at Rs. 8- 10 Lakh crores. The banks are
unable to offer credit to these defaulters while at the same time are hesitant
to offer credit to others for fear of default and being questioned for their
actions. To resolve this situation the government and RBI have released an
ordinance to proceed on bankruptcy norms with the earlier NPA’s and to protect
the existing banking system from vigilance action. This is neither here nor
there. The bankruptcy action will only shift the NPA’s from the banks cleaning
up their balance sheets over a period of time to the courts. Even the sale of
assets of the NPA’s which is conceived may not happen all the time since it
depends on the quality of the asset and the fact that the desired recovery of
price may not come. This has been proven in the Kingfisher case with SBI still
struggling to find buyers who will pay remunerative prices. Thus the NPA
problem will remain and the present process thought of just shifts the
liability from one pocket of the government to another. Protecting bankers is
another erroneous thing that the government is proposing since some of them
need to be brought to book and senior management at that so that the message
goes across that malpractices will not be tolerated. Just like Vijay Mallya is
named as the wonder-boy of NPA’s so also some bankers need be named as the
blue-eyed boys for the creation of the self-same NPA’s.
As for industrial
growth, the government needs to stimulate select sunrise sectors and vigorously
promote these so that they can take in the present slack of industrial growth
and can also be the beacons of future growth. Proceeding in this manner will
create employment leading to lesser disenchantment in the economy that is
prevailing now and set the economy back on the path of structured growth.
This method as positioned
above is what should be adopted by Narendra Modi and his government so
that they realize that governance does not mean just winning elections but
taking meaningful short-term and long-term measures for the welfare of the
people who are looking for work and a living wage and nothing more.
Official Cars In Government
Last week during the
Assembly session it was revealed that the government for buying new cars
for its ministers has spent amounts ranging from Rs. 16-23 Lakhs. One
wonders why such large amounts are being spent by the representatives of the
people for getting around. It is yet another area where the government can save
some money. Agreed that a car needs to be at the disposal of the minister but
can it not be a functional one to serve the purposes of locomotion. There are
many cars of the sedan category like the Maruti Desire with other manufacturers
also in the range of Rs. 8 Lakhs or so. Thus a list can be made of approved
cars in this price range from which the ministers can choose the one they want.
In fact the best option would be a single type with the same colour like the
good old days when the white Ambassador was the de-facto government car. In
fact following such a policy would make a government car easily recognisable
when it is on the road. Thus the government would be better advised to freeze
any buying of new cars until it comes with a policy as above on the
issue. Postscript: We have seen Ram Nath Kovind, now elected as
President of India, using an expensive Mercedes car while he was Governor of
Bihar. The post by itself is superfluous and then why the show of pomp and
ostentation towards it. These are hangovers from the British Raj. The President
and Prime Minister of India considering their status as heads of state and that
of government can be allowed luxury cars as long as they wish so considering
they have to receive their counterparts from foreign countries. All others
ministers and officialdom should have functional cars as described above and
scaling down as appropriate to their position.
Parrikar’s Duplicity On Casinos
The comments that the
CM has made about casinos is highly improper. Justifying them on the basis of
generation of revenue, employment and tourism and consequently development is a
skewed approach at looking at things by any responsible administration
authority. One can say that what about congestion that the casinos cause in the
Mandovi for river maritime traffic, the pollution of the river, an avenue for
black money channelisation to the white economy and the impact on Goan society
where some are getting addicted to gambling. As for crime rate not being
affected by casinos, it is a matter of interpretation and open to question. The
revenues from casinos are like the wages of sin. No good will come from living
on these kind of proceeds. In fact if such revenue is acceptable to Goa then we
should go the whole hog and legalise prostitution. Goa can then sign agreements
with Thailand as partnership country which with the same approach has made
money out of vice like prostitution, gambling and drugs. The casino owners also
have more often than not thumbed their nose at the Goa government like in the
present case of the Lucky 7 casino which was irresponsible enough to
ignore warning to bring their ship into the Mandovi with consequent risk to the
Miramar beach and the people of Panjim. Concluding true to Parrikar's style
which has not changed even after he has had a stint at the Centre, he speaks
twisting facts to suit his convenience. Like now casinos fund Goa's
development, why because Parrikar in his over-enthusiasm banned mining even
before the Supreme Court strictures came in and is now singing paens to the
contribution of casino revenue to Goa's development.
. An
Interesting Insight On The Candidates For President and VP
The voting for the Indian
Presidential election is completed and Ram Nath Kovind has got elected. The
candidates for this election and for that of the Vice President announced
recently have an interesting aspect to them. The BJP and NDA candidates in
Ram Nath Kovind and Venkiah Naidu suffer from the fact that the latter is more
known, has more stature on the political scene and has more experience than
Kovind. While the Opposition candidates throw up a generational issue. Meira
Kumar is Jagjivan Ram's daughter while Gopal Krishna Gandhi is Mahatma Gandhi's
grandson. One would expect in the normal course that the Gandhi connection makes
for a President but then what seems to have prevailed maybe in Meira Kumar's
favour is that she is one step removed from eminence while Gopalkrishna Gandhi
is two steps removed though the Mahatma's halo is stronger than Jagjivan Ram's.
The fact that she has wider political experience must also have clinched the
issue in her favour.
Ecological Risk at Miramar Beach in Goa
The episode of the
Lucky 7 casino ship stranded at the Miramar beach is leading up to a River
Princess like fiasco. The removal of 12,000 litres of fuel from the ship could
have risks in the kind of stormy weather prevailing now of an oil spill on the
Miramar beach. This whole situation has been created as is understood from the
newspapers by the refusal of the Lucky 7 to heed the Captain of Ports warning
not to bring in the ship into the Mandovi during the monsoon. One cannot
understand how the ship's owners can disregard the warning of an expert
authority. They need to be penalised severely so that it is understood by
everyone that such irresponsible action will not be overlooked. Even Parrikar's
comment on the issue that the Lucky 7 was being brought into the river at this
time on the basis of the High Court's advice is a vague response since the HC
is no authority on maritime matters. If even the HC advice was there it could
have been implemented after the monsoon keeping the safety of the people at large
in mind since now the Lucky 7 is an eyesore on Miramar beach and a potential
ecological risk to Panjim. Postscript: In Goa the question these days is
– Who is running the government – Parrikar or the casino owners?
CSJP Should Respect Administrative Action
Prologue: The
background to this issue is that there were multiple desecration spread over a
period of 2 weeks or more at multiple locations in Goa that in the majority
consisted of damaging crosses and gravestones of the Catholic community as also
some ghumtis and temples. The police had arrested a Christian person who later
confessed having committed these crimes. The latest position in the matter is
that this person has taken the police to 137 locations where he has conducted
desecrations over a period of more than a decade.
The CSJP – Council for Social Justice and
Peace, a Catholic run body, and their Fact Finding Committee on the recent
desecrations of crosses and gravestones at cemeteries are carrying things a bit
too far. The lone person of the Christian community who has been arrested for
the desecrations has confessed to the crime and the police seem
to have sufficient corroborative evidence to implicate him to the events.
Thus to question this is insulting the intelligence of the people at large. No
doubt there may be others who are involved in the desecrations but for that let
the police do their job. As good citizens we should accept at the first level
government action which initially is to quell the situation which has been done
with the single person's arrest. Give them time and the police may unearth
others involved. But before that questioning the arrest and accusing the
government of wanting to put a lid on the matter, seems to be highly improper.
The same kind of thing was done in the case of Father Bismarck's unfortunate
death and the poor fellow is in suspended animation between Goa and Heaven! All
such things are done by CSJP and other people to serve their own agendas and
get their 2 minutes of publicity in the arc-lights of the media. They should
eschew these tendencies. In fact what CSJP should have done is to recognise
reality that one of their own faith is responsible for the desecrations and
this is not the first time that this has happened. To comat this it
would be best if they institute a mechanism in association with the Church
to keep an eye out among the people of the Christian faith who would be
potential trouble makers and take steps to counsel them. Concluding, one must
say that the efforts of Hema Sardesai and others who appealed for communal
harmony and held the Peace concert should be lauded. But not the Vasco
businessman who offered to make good the crosses and the gravestones since the
latter should know that his actions are nothing to foster communal harmony
but help the community and those families who have been affected by the
desecrations and clearly he is also fishing for free publicity. Postscript:
A simple way to handle this matter by the Christian community is to have the
Church formally ostracise the perpetrator, then the Christian community will
come out clean.
BJP's Cow Lynching Agenda
Narendra Modi's denouncement of those that are
spreading violence in the name of protecting the cow and asking the States to
crack down on offenders is too little, too late. This is what he did in Gujarat
in 2002, allowing the rioters free rein for 3 days before calling the Army in.
In this instance also after more than 60 incidents across the country in the
last 3 years, it is now that he is coming out with a definitive stand on the
issue. But even now it is more by compulsion to take the wind out of the sails
of the Opposition who are planning to raise the issue in a big way in the
upcoming Monsoon Session of Parliament. The cow lynchers also know this and they
realise that with this statement by the PM they are being asked to lie low for
some time and then once public sentiment has subsided then they can go ahead
with their nefarious activities. Even in the PM's statement on the beef
lynchings he is asking the Opposition not to use the issue to derive political
mileage. Should this rule not apply to the BJP which is holding the seat
of government? Or is it that the BJP has the right to instigate but
expect others to keep their mouth shut? That the beef lynchings
are orchestrated is corroborated apart from other evidence is in the comments
made by Braj Behari Kumar, the Chairman of ICSSR - Indian Council of
Social Science Research, a government body, saying that the holding
of beef festivals hurt 90% of our population. Little does
Kumar realise that the beef festivals are held more frequently now across
the country to respond to the cow lynching agenda propagated by the BJP
and were rare in the past except for an annual affair at Osmania University at
Hyderabad. It is thus clear that the BJP are behind the spate of lynchings that
have crisscrossed the country over the last few years fomenting communal
tension.
Demolition Notices On Buildings In The Vicinity Of The
SantaCruz Airport
The demolition or modification notices (call it what you
will) on buildings in the vicinity of the SantaCruz airport for height issues
needs to be withdrawn for buildings that are more than 20 years old and
particularly those served on 2-storied houses. Irrespective of any
irregularties in obtaining the building clearance from the AAI these houses
have been subsisting for more than two decades and should be given carte
blanche exemptions. We need to remember that people and their dwellings are
more important than airports. Thus if it is a choice between people and
airports, it is the airport that should move. As it is Santa Cruz airport
located right in the middle of the city and with its increasing traffic of
flghts is a disaster waiting to happen. Therefore before we have a plane crash
in the adjoining mass of civilian buildings a decision needs to be taken to
shut it down once the new airport at Navi Mumbai comes up. To that extent the
new airport needs to be expedited. As regards the slums that have grown across
the periphery of Santa Cruz airport, there need not be any leeway given to
these and they should be summarily demolished with the people being
rehabilitated elsewhere.
China and Pakistan Outmaneuvering India's Foreign Policy
China and Pakistan are keeping India rattled on
its borders with them by outmaneuvering our foreign policy babus.
This is being engineered more by China than Pakistan with the latter continuing
to use the same old tools of cross-border terrorism and Kashmir. With the
India-US bonhomie in recent times being a thorn in China's eyes and considering
the confrontation it has been having with the US in the South China Sea,
China has been trying to keep India on the back foot by hinting that Asia
should stick together. India not joining China's Silk Road initiative on the
US' advice as China thinks, is yet another sore point. Therefore starting from
India's admission to the NSG which China has been opposing in the face of
approval from most countries in the group. Raising issues relating to
demarcation of the border in Arunachal Pradesh to voicing objections on Dalai
Lama's visit to that State, China continues to remain the conscientious
objector on India linked matters. Raising dormant issues like the Dokalam
plateau road on the junction of the Sikkim - Bhutan to a flash-point when in
the normal course it would have been settled through official level meetings is
yet another attempt to raise the pitch. In addition to this China has been
using Pakistan, its Sancho Panza in the Don Quixote relationship, to stir
up trouble in Kashmir, the latter country's favourite playing ground.
That is why apart from many other reasons, we have been seeing the Kashmir
Valley in turmoil for the last 6 months or more. And then to cap it all China
comes with its offer of mediation in Kashmir! This ploy is to seek India to
capitulate on one or the other issue, that is Dokalam and Arunachal Pradesh or
Kashmir. This is where India's foreign policy has been failing being primarily
reactive and depending on Modi's hugs which have no meaning unless you
have meaty issues on the table. Thus whether it was the border issues or
whatever India should have gone to the International Court of Justice to bring
China to heel. Not doing that will only make it costly for India in the long
run.
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