Growth that glitters is not all gold
— Ranen Kumar Goswami
The list of world’s richest is never complete today without some Indians among
the top. Forbes released yet another list on March 6, 2008 which saw India’s
Anil Ambani as the biggest wealth creator. As many as four Indians made it to
top ten positions in the billionaire club as against just one, Lakshmi Mittal,
a year ago. The other three were Mukesh Ambani, Anil Ambani and realty baron KP
Singh. India retained its position as the top source of billionaries in Asia
with total of 53 persons, who had a cumulative net worth of 340.9 billion
dollars on Forbes’ 2008 world billionaires list consisting of 1,125 persons
with a combined wealth of 4.4 trillion dollars. A year ago, there were just 179
billionaires, Forbes said.
With a net worth of 62 billion dollars, American investor Warren Buffet topped
the list, followed by Carlos Slim Helu (60 billion dollars) and Bill Gates (58
billion dollars) on second and third positions. They are followed by three
Indians, Lakshmi Mittal (45 billion dollars), Mukesh Ambani (43 billion
dollars) and Anil Ambani (42 billion dollars) on fourth, fifth an sixth ranks.
Besides DLF’s KP Singh (30 billion dollars) has been ranked after Sweden’s
Ingvar Kamprad (31 billion dollars). According to a Press Trust of India report
carried in several dailies on March 7, 2008, Forbes said Anil Ambani is the
biggest gainer with his wealth soaring by 23..8 billion dollars since the last
list. He is only one billion dollars ahead of his brother who is the second
biggest gainer with a rise of 22.9 billion dollars in his net worth. Mittal has
gained 13 billion dollars from last year, pushing him one place higher to
fourth rank this year. Among Indians,
Mittal, the Ambanis and Singh are followed by Essar group’s Shashi and Ravi
Ruia at 43rd rank globally with a combined net worth of 15 billion dollars,
Wipro’s Azim Premji (60th with 12.7 billion dollars), Sunil Mittal and family
(64th with 11.8 billion dollars) and Kumar Birla (76th with 10.2 billion
dollars). They are followed by Unitech’s Ramesh Chandra (86th with 9.6 billion
dollars), Gautam Adani (91st with 9.3 billion dollars), Savitri Jindal (110th
with 8.2 billion dollars), Anil Agarwal (164th with six billion dollars), Adi
Godrej (178th with 5.5 billion dollars) and GMR’s GM Rao (198th with 5.2
billion dollars).
One year earlier in March 2007, the Indians achieved a landmark as far as
riches are concerned. The Forbes list that year said India ended Japan’s
20-year reign as home to Asia’s most number of richest people. At that time
Japan had 24 billionaires with a combined net worth of 64 billion dollars and
India outnumbered that country with 26 billionaires. The amount was equal to
one-fourth of India’s gross national product.
A major reason behind accumulation of so much wealth is the accelerated rate of
economic growth during the last several years. The Economic Survey 2007-08
tabled in parliament on February 28, 2008, says, “there is no doubt that the
economy has moved to a higher growth plane with growth in GDP at market
exceeding 8 per cent in every year since 2003-04. The projected economic growth
of 8.7 per cent for 2007-08 is fully in line with this trend. During the Tenth
Five Year Plan (2002-07) the average annual rate of growth was 7.6 per cent. In
the last two years of the Tenth Plan there was unexpectedly high growth of 9.4
per cent and 9.6 per cent respectively. The Eleventh Plan (2007-08 to 2011-12)
growth target is 9 per cent. The Planning Commission had decided on this target
at a meeting in New Delhi on November 8, 2007, Thursday. Attending the meeting,
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh expressed serious concern over the oil, food and
fertiliser subsidies that
were poised to exceed Rs 1,00,000 crore during the base year itself. He said
“We need to address the problem of mounting subsidies on food, fertilisers and
now on petroleum which is a recent phenomenon”. Dr Singh asked the commission
members to “reflect what these mean for our development options and what
development options these subsidies are shutting out.”
On the face of it, what the Prime Minister says is true. Crores and crores of
rupees go into subsidies and they are a burden on the economy. And the Prime
Minister is an honourable man. But big corporate houses get thousands of crores
of rupees as incentives. Are these not subsidies in disguise? The latest
example is the increasing number of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) where the
government acquires land for private companies and allows the companies to use
it at throwaway prices. This has prompted noted social worker Vandana Shiva to
say, “the largest SEZs have been allocated to Mukesh Ambani. This is a criminal
subsidy the state is giving the rich by stealing from the poor.” Each year,
nationalised banks write off thousands of crores of rupees as bad debt. Most of
the beneficiaries are a small number of rich businessmen. Between 2000-04,
banks wrote of over Rs 44,000 crore. One beneficiary, as has been pointed out
by renowned journalist P Sainath,
was a Ketan Parekh company that saw Rs 60 crore knocked off. An All India Bank
Employees Association leader has informed Sainath that more than Rs 20,000
crore is written off each year by the nationalised banking sector as bad debt.
Here too, the biggest beneficiaries are the corporate houses. Are these not
subsidies in another form even if Dr Singh will want us to believe otherwise?
And if this is not discrimination, then what is?
These are exciting times for those who are reaping the benefits of growth, and
rightly so. But not for those who go to bed every night with a hungry stomach.
Last year, India clocked in 94th in the Global Hunger Index (GHI) prepared by
the International Food Policy Research Institute. Ethiopia ranked a notch above
India at 93, which meant that even a country like Ethiopia manages hunger
better than us. Pakistan was ahead of India at 88 and China at 47. So, how has
9 per cent growth changed the life of a commoner? Let us hear what Union
Finance Minister P Chidambaram has to say. Presenting the Economic Survey
2007-08 in Parliament on February 28, 2008, he said, “as per the UNDP’s Human
Development Report 2007, in spite of the absolute value of the Human
Development Index (HDI) for India improving from 0.577 in 2000 to 0.611 in 2004
and further to 0.619 in 2005, the relative ranking of India has not changed
much.”
Yes, life has not changed much or millions of underprivileged in the country. A
comprehensive study of official data drawn from various issues of “Accidental
Deaths and Suicides in India”, a publication of the National Crime Records
Bureau, Union Home Ministry, has revealed that close to 1,50,000 Indian farmers
committed suicide in nine years from 1997 to 2005. The data, analysed by
professor K Nagraj of the Madras Institute of Development Studies (MIDS), show
that two-thirds of these suicides are from the states of Maharashtra, Andhra
Pradesh, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh (including Chhattisgarh). On November 30,
2007, Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar gave further confirmation of this
fact in Rajya Sabha. Days later, on December 14, 2007 in a paper on child
development, Sesikan, Director of National Institute of Nutrition, Hyderabad,
gave the startling fact that India has the highest number of vitamin A
deficient children in the world, with
3,30,000 of them dying annually because of this malady.
The economic growth, the government boasts of, has not brought any good news
for a vast majority of people. Can’t we say in other words that the growth that
glitters is not all gold?
(Published in The Assam Tribune on April 21, 2008 issue)
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