** * * * Jharkhand News * <http://jharkhand.org.in/>
* National Corruption Guarantee Scheme * * When the media adviser to the Prime Minister says that he can neither confirm nor deny his boss' intention to resign if the prevarication on the Indo-US nuclear agreement persists, it is sensational news. Call it bad timing -- the information coincided with the announcement that the rate of inflation had officially crossed 11 per cent -- or plain scepticism, it is a commentary on the waning appeal of Manmohan Singh that the resignation threat failed to upstage the bad news on the economy. To use the jargon of the bourses, it almost seemed that the Prime Minister had already been "discounted" from the larger political calculations. Has Manmohan Singh reached the end of his tether? For the past month, and certainly after the Congress defeat in Karnataka, the Prime Minister has made an exceptional effort to personally showcase his own vulnerabilities to the country. First, on June 12 the Prime Minister pleaded for the removal of the political hurdles in the path of the Indo-US nuclear agreement. There was nothing unedifying about his speech, except that it was made to an audience of Indian Foreign Service probationers. But then, Manmohan doesn't appear to have too many opportunities to speak his mind. Secondly, on June 6, the day the Government announced a much-overdue hike in petroleum prices, the Prime Minister broadcast to the nation and appealed for a large measure of austerity. He appealed to Government establishments to curtail "wasteful expenditure" and then trivialised the appeal by focussing on air travel, foreign visits and five-star entertainment. Finally, in an address to ASSOCHAM on June 2, Manmohan said that the country couldn't afford to raise subsidies any longer. "We need further political consensus to adopt more rational economic policies", he said, almost implying that the UPA Government's profligacy was 'irrational'. There is a common thread running through the Prime Minister's speeches. In blaming "domestic politics" for derailing the national interest in the N-deal and identifying wasteful expenditure and promiscuous levels of subsidies as key economic problems, Manmohan is also conveying another parallel message: I have no control. The Prime Minister is not being economical with the truth. As an economist he knows that controlling money supply and raising interest rates are only part of the battle against inflation. In a country like India where the political class has never really overcome its infatuation with socialism, Government expenditure and borrowing adds to inflationary pressures. Being tough on inflation means being tough on Government expenditure, as Margaret Thatcher was. The problem is not confined to ministerial over-indulgence and needless foreign travel. While these excesses contribute to a disagreeable culture of governance, their over-regulation won't win us the fight against inflation. The Government has to target the big-ticket items of truly "wasteful expenditure". The biggest waste is, of course, the Rs 72,000 crore the Budget apportioned to writing off farmer's loans. Last week, various newspapers produced a photograph of two khadi-clad farmers in Maharashtra, one wearing aviator sunglasses, flaunting their "no debt" certificates, flanked by a proud Mother India Sonia Gandhi. That photograph epitomises the tale of the loan-waiver. First, the beneficiaries are the politically-connected who can jolly well afford to service loans; and, second, sacks of money are being spent on bolstering the image of Sonia Gandhi as India's Lady Bountiful. The second biggest item of wasteful expenditure is the NREGS, yet another programme aimed at projecting Sonia as the annadata. When this programme was launched two years ago, I described it as the Corruption Guarantee Scheme. It is reassuring that Jean Dreze, one of the architects of this programme, has also come around to this view. Dreze has rightly created a fuss about the murder of an activist conducting a social audit of the NREGS in Jharkhand where, it seems, contractors are merrily misappropriating funds meant for the rural unemployed. Rahul Gandhi has made similar observations about the NREGS in Bundelkhand. No wonder the Congress-which initially thought the NREGS would be its version of Operation Barga in West Bengal-has quietly dropped it from their list of vote-winning programmes. Subsidies and wasteful expenditure have nothing to do with sensible economics. They have everything to do with a mindset that sees taxpayers' money as the private property of the Congress President-to be dispensed according to her whims and fancies. The UPA Government has shied away from attending to the infrastructural deficiencies of the country. The highway building programme begun by the previous NDA Government has come to a grinding halt, Mumbai doesn't seem any closer to becoming another Shanghai and agriculture has suffered because the focus is on subsidies rather than improved inputs. In his own way Manmohan has tried to tell us the real story. Unfortunately, in being too tangential he has missed the plot and finds himself having to answer for a crisis that was not really of his own making. He was at best an accessory to the crime, not the criminal. Unfortunately, that is not something the Congress wants to believe. A good man, but an incredibly weak man, is all set to be the political fall guy. The real culprits will make sure they live to squander another day. dailypioneer.com/columnist1.asp?main_variable=Columnist&file_name=swapan%2Fswapan204.txt&writer=swapan Note - Title by J-News. * ** ** *Jharkhand Network* * www.jharkhand.org.uk* **
