Union Budget – India betrays its poors and State

The statistics of Government of India have also informed that half of India is hovering near and below poverty line. Any body who knows any thing about rural India knows that if GOI implement Rural Employment Guarantee program (NREGP), as per its promise to Parliament, for 300 working days in all the district for every adult at minimum statutory daily wages of Rs 100/-  then half of the working age population of rural India will gladly line up before job giving centers of NREGP (where productive assets will have to be created departmentally with the help of not only unskilled labor but also with semi-skilled, skilled labour , supervisors etc and with material cost NREGP will require at least Rupees one Trillion per year).
 
But despite half of India’s poor  unemployed / underemployed , the neglect of NREGP (which is evident from Feb, 26 Union Budget where in real terms after deducting for inflation, the NREGP allocation at Rs. 401 Billion is less than the allocation of last year) is possible in India due to four reasons:-

(i)- This poor half of  India mainly belongs to suppressed so called backward and lower castes of Hindu order therefore neither these oppressed castes traditionally have moral courage to effectively oppose grave injustices to them nor so called upper caste Hindus (who practically control all most all the economical / religious institutions) have any traditional sensibility towards the miseries of these oppressed people of Hindu majority India (notwithstanding political leaders and even constitutional authorities from these oppressed castes moving around the corridors of power who rant their impotent rage against grave injustices to these oppressed castes who are the constituencies of these self-servers).

(ii)- The mobilization of Rs One Trillion per year for NREGP though seems to be a daunting task but it is not that difficult as portrayed by anti-federal, wasteful and inefficient India. It has become hilarious annual sight to watch Union Budget where every thing pertaining to State subjects (health, education, agriculture, water, irrigation, natural resources, non-national road, rail, air transport, power etc) are expected from Center and a well orchestrated drama is enacted with the assistance of well-greased media and corporate sector as if State Governments simply do not / should not exist in India at all.

(iii)- Politicians who can not run a factory / industrial activity aspire and claim to run the country hence Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) are uncompetitive and go in loss invariably.

(iv)- There is lot of ineffective and hypocritical cacophony  in India that the poors in India are also entitled for at least minimum respectful life but practically no one says that Indian State (Center and States) also need adequate resources (in order to discharge its mandatory obligations through its armed forces, police, bureaucracy and judiciary) and  which can be generated only when all the working age citizens of India are engaged in meaningful employment.

But democracy is fast changing the situation regarding assertive capacities and capabilities of these oppressed people and it will not be long before these have-nots politically explode the most inhuman and unjust structure of Indian State. Moreover the prolonged neglect regarding adequate resources to all the organs of State (Center and States) is precipitating a situation where India may have to face the danger of  becoming a failed State. Therefore Indians should shed their inertia and do the following:-

(1)- In the interest of infusing economical initiative and dynamism to States the genuine federalism should be practiced where all the martial jurisdictions (of defense, foreign affairs, communication, currency, citizenship, national rail, water, road, air transportation, enforcement of human rights including basic human rights of  livelihood through NREGP etc) shall be with Center and all the said civil jurisdictions shall be with States (Provinces).

(2)- India has missed the bus of exclusively private capitalism (where trickle down effect takes care of poverty) for the simple reason that India did not control its population and added almost three America population-wise since its independence in 1947. Hence exclusively private capitalism is not enough to provide funds for NREGP through taxes alone and GOI has no other option than to mobilize these funds through the profits of PSUs also.

(3)- For this GOI will have to remedy the malaise in its work culture namely GOI will have to mobilize capable Ministers and board members of PSUs who can run these PSUs in competition with private sector and in profit in order to provide funds for NREGP from profits of these PSUs.

(4)- As is common knowledge, in India substantial part of the properties / capital have been acquire by either corruption or by criminal activities hence there is no reason why unquestioned respectability and sanctity should be conferred on private capital and especially on interest earning (without doing any thing) from such capital, Hence GOI should get incorporated in the Constitution that no more than 4 % of interest (in order to take care of the expenses of  bank / financial institution and of the depositors)  shall be allowed to / charged by any bank / financial institution.

(5)- GOI will have to add state capitalism also to private capitalism by removing the government banker and banker’s banker function from Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and by making RBI exclusively the currency issuing authority and money controlling authority. In this new monetary system RBI shall issue currency notes  against not only equal metallic (gold, silver etc) asset backup under physical possession of RBI but also against other recognized assets (like land and landed properties etc) under constructive possession of RBI.

(6)- Nothing has done more harm to Indian economy than unqualified terminology of  “fiscal deficit”. There are two ways of bridging fiscal deficit. One by borrowing money (which does not increase money supply and merely shift money from private persons to government) and other by printing currency notes with or without equal asset backup which increases high power money M0 and with multiplying factor has disturbing implications for the economy. Therefore GOI should stop using unqualified fiscal deficit in its budget and instead use the term “debt fiscal deficit” and “money fiscal deficit”.

(7)-  GOI should immediately stop the horrendously ineffective and corrupt implementation of  NREGP through local bodies and instead should start this implementation departmentally.

(8)- India should give up its ludicrous mindset that if  India’s population is more than China’s then India will be more powerful than China. Hence India  (whose politicians are scared to even talk about population control through family planning because Indira Gandhi lost election to great extent due to excess of family planning during emergency period of 1975 - 77) should seriously strive for population control so that 1.2 Billion approaching population of India can lead reasonably respectful life in coming future.