Economic
Highlights
New Delhi, 27 August 2018
Sheer Cosmetic Data
ECOLOGY NEGLECT HITS
ECONOMY
By Shivaji Sarkar
India is afflicted with some serious issues.
The Kerala floods, overflowing of 32 of 35 dams and flooding of all districts
and whether the planners or organisations like National Green Tribunal (NGT) have
failed the country.
Then there is also the realm of statistics. It
is not what it tells but how these are built up. The base figures that were
changed in 2011 do they inflate performance or lowers it? Either way, if it is
not reflecting the reality, it is not a healthy sign.
The Aadhar and its changing security
paradigms too are important. Again it is linked to data security. There are
also some aspects that speak of falling household savings and bank deposits.
It is customary to blame the government for
any malaise. In these cases we find that there are many regulators or parallel
organisations that have not served well.
The Kerala floods stand differently despite
widespread rainfall across the country. It also calls for serious introspection
and questions the functioning of many organsiations, State governments and the
most importantly the NGT.
It appears that organisations like these are
more concerned about trivial automobile emissions, said to be responsible for
mere 2 per cent of pollution in urban areas, than the serious malaise and
negligence of core ecological issues. Is not NGT expected to take moves to find
out what the actual threats to the ecologies are?
It can shrug off the charges by saying that they
are a regulator and not executors. It could have stopped Mumbai and Kochi
airports being built on flood plains. Why did the NGT not do so? Additionally,
the nation would like to know if it had acted on the Madhav Gadgil report or
technically known as Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP). The committee
had classified 140,000 square km divided into three zones as ecologically
sensitive. How could the Kerala government reject the report and today demand
relief packages from the Centre for a calamity that is stated to be man-made?
The report was submitted in 2011, two years
before the Kedarnath tragedy. In Uttarakhand too, the greed of man and the
overflowing waters of Tehri Dam devastated the ecologically fragile Himalayan State.
It seems nobody learns. Kerala’s ghats are also fragile and the way some of the
hills collapsed with buildings and habitation testify greed takes the upper
hand of the serious safety and conservation concerns.
It is people’s suffering and the nation has
to stand by them. But is not the devastation today because of ignoring the
basics. It also raises the question of building dams in sensitive zones while
now worldwide it is recognised that dams create more problems.
That was the area of the Planning Commission
now the NITI Ayog. It has sent billions of rupees literally down the waters. It
is the devastation of the people’s hard earned money. They paid for these
unsound projects. A nation on a course to growth must wonder why the experts
could not succeed or the executives, as it was also in the case of Tehri Dam,
ignored the warnings. It’s for whose profit?
The total expenditure for Tehri was $1
billion. The Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) cost
benefit analysis concluded that the construction cost of the dam was twice the
projected benefits. It may be so for many projects. These are simply
ignored. It is everywhere like the Rs 72 crore going down the drains for
turning a journalism institute into university in 2010, which never happened. Is
a nation supposed to repeat mistakes?
Today the nation is struck with data jugglery
of 2011. In retrospect it appears that the previous methodology was better and
did not inflate gains as the new one has done for 2007-08. Was it changed for
political concerns and are the revised data being dished out to put some
political inheritors in dim light? Either way playing with data is dangerous.
That as a nation, we are playing too much
with the data, is also evident the way everyday new methodologies are announced
for Aadhar. Expert panel headed by Justice BN Srikrishna proposed amendments to
bolster data protection. Then comes face recognition and several other changes.
Meanwhile, there are reports that in Uttar Pradesh hackers diverted foodgrains
worth millions by compromising Aadhar. Some foreign agencies are allegedly
misusing these too. It all suggests relook at the entire UIDAI process and
bares fact that Aadhar security is not that easy and it has to be done on
war-footing.
The falling household savings rate reaching a
critical low of 18.7 per cent in 2014-15, declining since 2011-12, when the
ratio stood at 23 per cent, is a grave sign. India has progressed even during
the Hindu rate of growth on this count alone. Whenever the savings equilibrium
changed, the economy faced problems.
Today it has hit bank deposits. The reasons
are the disincentives created by Manmohanomics through reduction of savings
interest rates, taxing the savings and making it non-productive even for the
geriatric people. The purpose was to boost speculative stock markets, which is
today on a cosmetic rise and actually on a crashing course.
If India has to succeed household savings
have to be encouraged. The taxes on savings have to go. The government must
rethink how it can earn revenue if the people themselves are pauperized.
Besides, banks could also get back to health
if people save. Their savings alone can boost development and growth. The banks
cannot look for continuous recapitalisation through taxpayers’ money. It is a
devious method. Incentivising savings and freeing it from taxes would help the
government. Let us look at the method of 1960s, when massive National Savings
Scheme mobilisations saved the government through decades.
Let the country go back to its traditional
basics to save the nation and not just saving deposits. The traditional frugal
living concept has aided the progress of this nation. Traditional knowledge
used to take care of ecology, forest conservation, respecting the riverine
plains and the nature.
Correcting neglect and decades of problems is
not easy. Though all of it is not the creation of the government, but
ultimately as nation’s driver it has to take severe measures. National debate
on ecology, not just to reduce auto emission, boosting savings and protecting
data is must. The path has to be established despite all problems. ---INFA
(Copyright,
India News & Feature Alliance)
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