03-04-2007, 01:55 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Time for obituaries </b>
Pioneer.com
Swapan Dasgupta
May be it is, as some people believe, the constellation of stars and planets. Divine intervention or plain human ineptitude, things are just not going well for the Congress. It's bad enough losing power in two States. What was worse was to the results being declared at the precise moment the party was squirming with discomfiture over the resurrection of <b>the Quattrocchi issue - a controversy where the Government is perceived to be heeding the real inner voice.</b>Â <!--emo&
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tongue.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tongue.gif' /><!--endemo-->
The Union Budget could have been the moment of redemption, the occasion to demonstrate that the Government truly cares. Yet, it required one inappropriate sentence from the lips of the Finance Minister for <b>the entire exercise to be mocked as a cat-and-dog Budget - a description which sounds even worse in vernaculars.</b> Last year, soap box orators evoked a few smirks by questioning the reduction of duties on pasta; this year, even the leading pink paper was left wondering whether "pet food is what's served by Sonia Gandhi at CWC meetings."Â
Catchy slogans have a nasty habit of ricocheting. The great India Shining mantra which most observers (including this writer) thought was a certain election winner, ended up being regarded as needlessly boastful, and the BJP paid an exorbitantly high price for it. This year, the aam aadmi slogan, which paid huge dividends in 2004, has returned to haunt the UPA Government.
As the inflation graph moves steadily upwards affecting both the poor and the middle classes in varying degrees, Congress workers all over the country are being asked whether a canine-friendly Budget benefits the aam aadmi.
May be it is cruel to juxtapose one against the other-this Budget penalises both the rich and the poor. What is undeniable, however, is that the UPA Government has lost all direction. In 2004, it inherited an economy that, despite the unevenness in growth patterns, was readying to take-off. The take-off did happen in subsequent thanks to the unleashing of pent-up entrepreneurial energies. The question is: Did the Government facilitate the climb?
Like any good moderately right-of-centre formation, the erstwhile<span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'> NDA Government believed that the job of the administration was to create the right macro-economic environment for growth. It concentrated on reducing taxes, lowering interest rates and inflation, dismantling controls and investing heavily in infrastructure. The rest was left to the creative impulses of the people.</span>
The UPA didn't discard this approach entirely. However, instead of investing the burgeoning revenues in physical infrastructure, it put a disproportionate amount of taxpayers' money into sops and handouts. In principle that is electorally prudent, but there was a catch: the ability of the state to deliver welfare is questionable. Rajiv Gandhi discovered this when he admitted that only 15 paise out of every rupee reached the intended beneficiaries; the rest was frittered away in administrative overheads and leakages. Has the picture changed in two decades?
More important, why can't the Rs 18,000 crore devoted to the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme be used to create assets in rural communities? As things stand, it is being used to dig holes and fill them up again. To take the point further, is there any audit of the way the education cess is spent?
As a rule, people don't like their hard-earned or wisely invested money to be taken away in taxes. Yet, most are willing to stomach a measure of taxation if the Government achieves something productive at the end of the day. The UPA Government has not only raised taxes progressively and squeezed productive sectors, it has shown absolutely no inclination to avoid wasteful and unproductive expenditure. <b>In the past three years, Government expenditure has increased dramatically without even a Golden Quadrilateral to show for it</b>.
The Government is living beyond its means and it knows it. For three years, high growth ensured that the profligacy was papered over but the inheritance was recklessly squandered. It's time to face the music of scandalous economic mismanagement. It's also time to begin writing some political obituaries.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Pioneer.com
Swapan Dasgupta
May be it is, as some people believe, the constellation of stars and planets. Divine intervention or plain human ineptitude, things are just not going well for the Congress. It's bad enough losing power in two States. What was worse was to the results being declared at the precise moment the party was squirming with discomfiture over the resurrection of <b>the Quattrocchi issue - a controversy where the Government is perceived to be heeding the real inner voice.</b>Â <!--emo&
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tongue.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tongue.gif' /><!--endemo--> The Union Budget could have been the moment of redemption, the occasion to demonstrate that the Government truly cares. Yet, it required one inappropriate sentence from the lips of the Finance Minister for <b>the entire exercise to be mocked as a cat-and-dog Budget - a description which sounds even worse in vernaculars.</b> Last year, soap box orators evoked a few smirks by questioning the reduction of duties on pasta; this year, even the leading pink paper was left wondering whether "pet food is what's served by Sonia Gandhi at CWC meetings."Â
Catchy slogans have a nasty habit of ricocheting. The great India Shining mantra which most observers (including this writer) thought was a certain election winner, ended up being regarded as needlessly boastful, and the BJP paid an exorbitantly high price for it. This year, the aam aadmi slogan, which paid huge dividends in 2004, has returned to haunt the UPA Government.
As the inflation graph moves steadily upwards affecting both the poor and the middle classes in varying degrees, Congress workers all over the country are being asked whether a canine-friendly Budget benefits the aam aadmi.
May be it is cruel to juxtapose one against the other-this Budget penalises both the rich and the poor. What is undeniable, however, is that the UPA Government has lost all direction. In 2004, it inherited an economy that, despite the unevenness in growth patterns, was readying to take-off. The take-off did happen in subsequent thanks to the unleashing of pent-up entrepreneurial energies. The question is: Did the Government facilitate the climb?
Like any good moderately right-of-centre formation, the erstwhile<span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'> NDA Government believed that the job of the administration was to create the right macro-economic environment for growth. It concentrated on reducing taxes, lowering interest rates and inflation, dismantling controls and investing heavily in infrastructure. The rest was left to the creative impulses of the people.</span>
The UPA didn't discard this approach entirely. However, instead of investing the burgeoning revenues in physical infrastructure, it put a disproportionate amount of taxpayers' money into sops and handouts. In principle that is electorally prudent, but there was a catch: the ability of the state to deliver welfare is questionable. Rajiv Gandhi discovered this when he admitted that only 15 paise out of every rupee reached the intended beneficiaries; the rest was frittered away in administrative overheads and leakages. Has the picture changed in two decades?
More important, why can't the Rs 18,000 crore devoted to the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme be used to create assets in rural communities? As things stand, it is being used to dig holes and fill them up again. To take the point further, is there any audit of the way the education cess is spent?
As a rule, people don't like their hard-earned or wisely invested money to be taken away in taxes. Yet, most are willing to stomach a measure of taxation if the Government achieves something productive at the end of the day. The UPA Government has not only raised taxes progressively and squeezed productive sectors, it has shown absolutely no inclination to avoid wasteful and unproductive expenditure. <b>In the past three years, Government expenditure has increased dramatically without even a Golden Quadrilateral to show for it</b>.
The Government is living beyond its means and it knows it. For three years, high growth ensured that the profligacy was papered over but the inheritance was recklessly squandered. It's time to face the music of scandalous economic mismanagement. It's also time to begin writing some political obituaries.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->