Whats the use of Indian Budget?

Recently the Indian Budget ritual was enacted on Feb 28.

Here are some of the stats on India that I culled from a recent article "Unfinished Agenda" from India Today…

– Of the 126 airports (domestic and international) only 9 are profitable and 45 airports where NO flights land!
– 18 of the 30 State Electrivity Boards lose money.
– SEBs lose Rs 30,000 crores in THEFT annually (roughly USD 6.8 BILLION)
– Internal Debt is OVER 80% of the GDP
– Deficits of State and Center add up to OVER 10% of the GDP.
– Tax-GDP ratio is just over 11%.
– 40% of the food produced ROTS (around 16 MILLION TONNES of foodgrain and 40 MILLION TONNES of fruits and vegetables)
– If food processing was opened up to enable refrigeration, processing and packaging – it would create jobs, deliver incomes to 670 million farmers (who are 66% of population living off of LESS THAN 25% of GDP)

for more such stats go to this post.

I dont care what political ideology one professes to follow – communist, socialist, or capitalist.. or whatever shit one comes up with – but when:

1. the country loses $6.8 BILLION a YEAR to theft because a few thousand inefficient workers in State Electricity Boards cannot be laid off…
2. When 40% of the FOOD in a country ROTS because we cannot open it up to processing companies because they would make stuff for rich and provide inferior stuff to poor as opposed to the Government providing NOTHING to the poor…

… then in my book we have VERY SICK MINDSETS!! And those idiots who proliferate such behavior are Criminals of mankind!!

Corruption is a general problem in India.. but I have issues with the mindsets – the archaic mindsets that cannot think any longer! I have studied in a Management School which gave stalwarts to the Cooperative movement and to the NGOs in India and the head honcho of that school – Father of Indian Milk Revolution (Dr. Kurien) – fights ANY opening up of the sector steadfastly! Great he did some awesome work.. but the question is can we let one guy – or few guys – dictate the policy because THEY think that noone else has ANY HEART inserted by God in them?

Its truly amazing that some of the Public Sector Units in India – with Billions of investment and working capital outlays – have NOT CLOSED THEIR BOOKS in LAST 50 YEARS!! This was disclosed by Arun Shourie – Divestment minister in BJP Government and he was the target of so much opposition!

To me this mindset breeds Institutional Beggary! Let these PSU employees just sit at home with a bowls on their front door and have one guy drop checks in them every month!! They dont work ANYWAYS!! So why keep dumping Working capital and Fixed Capital money in those useless units EVERY MONTH from taxpayers hard earned Rupees!??? Just sell the Fixed Capital and turn the tap off on all utilities and keep paying these beggars their monthly alms!

India CANNOT progress until the day we can change our attitudes – start looking at the forest and not concentrate on the small leaves on the bushes in the undergrowth!!

Lot of Budget analysts have come up with different thoughts and critique but then the truth is these are like straigthening the deck of the titanic! I mean losing USD 7 billion ANNUALLY to inefficiency in JUST ONE department in a country like India where millions are starving every day is criminal.. NO AMOUNT of brilliance in budgeting can solve that! PERIOD!

Tags: Indian Budget, Economy