Economic Highlights

New Delhi, 9 August 2014

Bureaucratic Shackles

STOP LOOT FOR ‘BETTER SERVICE’

By Shivaji Sarkar

The price mafia has learnt to rule the country through the bureaucracy. A change in government does not bring the natural relief that people want. Prices continue to soar; services through bureaucratic manipulation are made more expensive. Facilities built with people’s money, taxes or bank deposits that make highways and other necessary facilities, are made unaffordable to feed the greed of the few, workers’ rights are tried to be trampled on and farmers’ land becomes easy prey.

People cry at every door step. They are heaped with insults and extortion. The latest being petroleum products which sly operators want to be sold in black through a provisioning of “pollution check must” formula. The new vehicles have proven engines that do not cause pollution for years then why have we made pollution check expensive? It doesn’t cost an operator more than Rs 10, at the most, to check a vehicle for pollution. Can anybody tell us why one has to pay Rs 80 or more for it?

Through the years of Manmohanomics, the bureaucracy, which does not have to a pay a farthing for any facility along with the mafia connived to create a slogan: “If you want better service, you have to pay more”. There is no end to paying more – a five-rupee parking costs Rs 100 and sometimes more, a free road travel costs high toll tax, and all this is again justified by increasing prices of every commodity, vegetable, milk, food grains, building material and all other essential items.

Standard of services is deliberately deteriorated so that people may be asked to pay more for “better services” and fatten the pockets of exploiters, who dot every nook and corner. Rising prices are not an isolated phenomenon or restricted to railway fare and freight. It is making life difficult at every step. Corruption is all pervading in the name of “better services”, which have in fact become synonymous with “no service at all”.

There is no justification for issuing slips to vehicles at the airport so that these exit the 2 to 5km long carriage way after dropping or picking up passengers in flat 5 minutes. Else they have to pay “parking charges” at Rs 120 even for not parking the vehicles. One forgets that the airport is built with public money and it is right of the people to visit it and not pay for it.

The private operators, who had entered the business with connivance of the Manmohan Singh government at all the airports, have not invested a penny, as the CAG has repeatedly testified. The new government was expected to undo it but in the mesh of the same bureaucrats, who are making hefty profits from cuts from the operators, people continue to feel oppressed.

The people had voted to experience that change. In return they got an overdrive to push through the land acquisition Act – a ploy to usurp the farm land owned by poor farmers. Now the new amendment even suggests that consent for acquisition by the Government is not necessary apart from bypassing the stringent law that was enacted about two years back. Can we really trust a Government, run by the bureaucrats, whatever its colour may be?

The Government is bound to change but the rules unfortunately aren’t implemented by the lawmakers but by bureaucrats, who find all the means to flout the laws. Democracy has become more of a sham. The country has witnessed it not only in Singur, West Bengal but all across—on how government-acquired land is passed on to private parties in the name of “public good”. Some large corporate are known to have benefitted by almost Rs 33,000 crore in one deal through such largesse. Still the law is tended to be tweaked. Worse, members of Parliament do not protest at such massive misuse of the law.

Then there is the big question of why the country should allow more foreign direct investment (FDI) in insurance, railways road, defence or any other sector? More so, as the country has historical experience that FDI is a route to repatriate more, in the name of profits, technical fee, administrative cost and much more to foreign exploiters than bring in investment.

Nobody brings money into the insurance sector. It is easy money for the insurance companies, who except for initial office set up, are not known to invest a penny. Else the government in 1950s would not have to ask all the foreign companies to pack up. Who are we batting for increasing the FDI to 49 per cent? It is public knowledge that it doesn’t need even a dollar to run an insurance company. Undoubtedly, insurance and mutual funds should not be allowed any encouragement. These have become extension of the infamous ponzi schemes.

The list is getting longer. As a test case take Uttar Pradesh’s Samajwadi (socialist) government’s all-out efforts to increase even the basic charges of electricity by almost four times for a 3kw domestic supply to Rs 10,000. The Centre has powers to act for the people but the queer logic that “services have to be paid for at the will of the operators” prevents it from doing so.

Then there is Rajasthan which has made draconian changes to the labour laws. The Centre is trying to repeat these. No labour law since its inception has been implemented if it has ever been in the interest of the working class. Labour courts have in only few cases been able to undo the injustice meted out to this class. Why are we trying to undo the little protection the workers have? The political masters must no longer listen to the bureaucracy and the corporate.

The country needs to learn from even the supposedly “exploitative” Middle East. The workers’ rights are more protected there than in this country. Those countries subsidise food items so that these are affordable and their economies remain on rail. A loaf of bread for the past 30 years cost one rial. Milk, food and other items have not seen any increase even through the worst global crisis. They are more democratic in protecting people’s rights than the largest democracy.

Clearly, the people’s representatives and ministers need to come out of the inertia to protect the economy of the country. Let them not forget that if the poor are not protected they have the means to ensure change. People have waited for over 24 years of Manmohanomics changing their lives. They yearn for quick action to free themselves of the bureaucratic shackles.---INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)