Is India progressing or regressing????

Day in and day out Indian government reels out statistical data on the growth of
GDP, per capita income and the consumption of steel, cement, electricity etc., the
various parameters of growth of a country. To a vast majority of Indian these are only
some numbers and has not made any material difference to their quality of life and
the path to poverty alleviation. This data used to be tool to bring about the rosy side
of government efforts. But now the Government has lost even this statistical tool to
save its skin. The release on Thursday, last week, of the advance estimates of national
income in 2012-13 by the Central Statistics Office came with numbers that will have
startled and worried most observers. The headline fact is that the growth of
gross domestic product at factor cost at constant (2004-05) prices is
estimated at merely five per cent.Whatever may be the fact, the answer to ' Is
India progressing or regressing ' is clear to any unbiased citizen of the country.

Concerns have been expressed that these numbers, given that they depend on
extrapolation from the first three quarters of the financial year, may be revised sharply
upwards later. That would be a hope worth holding on to if there were real signs of a
recovery in the real economy that observers could point to. However, there are few
such signs. Yes, corporate profits have been remarkably solid. But that appears to be
because of careful cost-cutting, and there is little or no sign that it is sustainable or
likely to be turned into investment any time soon. Leading infrastructure sectors
remain depressed; and the order books of major infrastructure companies are not just
empty, but actually emptier than they were at this time last year. These numbers,
therefore, should be taken seriously.
Let us glance the statistics of the three sectors of Indian economy: Agriculture,
Industry & Service Sector.
The government can point to the fact that the agricultural growth rate is 1.8 per cent
as partial mitigation of its responsibility. Last year, the growth rate of agriculture was
3.6 per cent, but this year’s rains were less regular and dispersed differently over time.
First, the point needs to be made that, for all this government’s vaunted rural focus, it
has been unable to insulate agricultural production sufficiently from the vagaries of
the monsoon; and, second, the fact that an increasingly irregular monsoon is a
consequence of climate change will become more of a concern as time passes, and yet
the government seems to think that this is an aberration, not the new normal.

Meanwhile, though services have declined sharply – to 6.6 per cent growth, from their
already depressed growth rate of 8.2 per cent in 2011-12 – the real problem continues
to be in the secondary, industrial sector; and here the government can hardly evade its
central responsibility. Industrial growth is 3.1 per cent, driven and kept low by a
manufacturing growth rate of 1.9 per cent. Indeed, all non-services sectors of the
economy except for power, gas and water have clocked growth rates between one and
two per cent. This has nothing to do with the headwinds of the world economy; it has
everything to do with a lack of reform, excessive crowding out, and an inability to make
investment seem worthwhile to Indian capital. India is paying a heavy cost for the
UPA’s incompetence in managing the economy.

India is now trying to adopt the best practices like the GST and direct benefits Transfer
which if properly implemented can do wonders in terms of development. However, the
problem with India is that whenever something new is being introduced it has to be
opposed by someone. Criticism is welcome only if it is healthier. Our political parties
are busy throwing light upon each other’s’ scams and corruption in their respective
ruling period. Of course it is necessary to blow the lid off the scams but in doing so the
progress of India is hampered. Now due to differences between State and Central Govt.
there is an absolute deadlock in case of GST. While satisfying the needs of all the States
the GST may turn out to be another complex tax system thus creating more confusion
rather than simplification.
Policy Paralysis is the major drawback which holds India back in spite of having vast
potential to be the Superpower.

The two important parameters, namely the reservations and subsidies are sharp
pointers to the failure of India's planning policy.

 Reservations and Quotas: In 1950, the country started with the reservation
policy wherein schedule castes and schedule tribes were given a reservation of 15 %
and 7% respectively on the basis of social and economic status. After sixty years,
instead of these quotas coming down, the country has reservations to the tune of 50%
and some places even much more by additions from newer classes. In fact more
population groups are clamouring for additional quotas for themselves. Either the
number of people that falls in the quota criterion has risen or it is the boon of vote
bank politics Subsidies: If India were progressing the number of people in
need of subsidies for food, fuel as also the amount spent on doling out
these subsidies should have come down whereas the reality is just the
converse of this.
India certainly is on road to become an industrialized nation but sadly
the fruits of this industrialization do not seem to trickle down to its poor
millions. This raises a very serious question. Is India's planning on the right path?
Is this growth rate sufficient to alleviate poverty in a reasonable time frame, say two
or three decades? Or India will grow into an industrialized giant/behemoth wherein
a big percentage has to be content with poverty and live below subsistence level
existence as had happened in the developed world during the early stages of
industrial revolution. It is time the polity and planners brood over this concern and
come out with solutions that will bring the graphs of reservations and subsidies
sloping downwards at the earliest.

Alleviation of poverty has been the biggest concern and vote catching slogan in one
form or the other right from the day India became independent and embraced
democracy. With all the planning for growth, it could manage to achieve some
success towards industrialization in all sectors but the demon of poverty has stayed
on for a vast majority of Indian masses. So much so that even the elementary basic
needs like food, clothing, shelter, drinking water, medical care, education etc. have
eluded our masses after 65 years of independence and planning of economy.It is
definite that Indian governments and planners have gone wrong somewhere.
A cursory analysis of ground realities points out to

 Inflation and rupee devaluation as the main culprit whereby the

wages/earnings have not grown in the real terms. In fact gold prices have risen more
than 600 times, car prices have risen more than 120 times, majority of food items
prices have risen by more than 100 times, petrol prices have risen by more than 100
times and the prices of a house or shelter may have risen by a whopping 1000 times.
In comparison the salaries have risen by 50 to 60 times even in the best of the
organized sector. In fact in India about 90% of the workforce is in the unorganized
sector and their wages have risen by only about 35-40 times.So in India every worker
is getting poorer day by day and the only class that is gaining is the people who thrive
on corruption, tax evasion and black money.
The only way forward is to rein in inflation, rupee devaluation and corruption,tax
evasion and black money if poverty alleviation has to be the main plank of our
development model.But who is going to bell the cat? The big guzzlers and creators of
corruption and black money andcorruption and black money centres are known to
every one and more to the people who are seen on the media channels day in and day
out scoring brownie points over each other. Incidentally all these guys who are the
spokesperson of one political party or the other are mostly from the legal profession
and belong to business hubs of metropolitan cities and there cannot be anyone better
than them to know about the centres of corruption and black money. But for some
strange reason known only to them they either choose to keep quite over this matter
of great importance to the country or engage each other in shadow boxing without
aiming to produce some meaningful results.
Next to reining in inflation and black money Indian politicians must exhibit some far
sight and vision to be in the reckoning for the next global economic superpower and
not miss this god sent opportunity which is unfolding as the world realizes the need
to shift from twentieth century energy sources. The country needs some out of the
box solution to its transport needs, power needs. The solutions have to be found in
anything other than all fuel based technologies. In a big and vast country like India,
electricity has to be provided to remote dwellings, villages small and remote and
industry if country sincerely wants to alleviate poverty at an early date. Let wisdom
and national interest prevail on Indian politicians and nuclear technocrat lobby so
that India does not fall prey to US and French interests and in the bargain lose its
chance of leading the world in the transition to renewable energy solutions. Let India
make best use of our being backward in per capita consumption of energy. It is a fact
that US, Europe and China will not add or replace 8,00,000 MW which India is
planning to add during the next decade and a half. It has the opportunity of fine
tuning wind and solar energy technologies and cut down their costs through
development of large scale manufacturing facilities without having to bother about
its earlier investments in any energy field becoming redundant and superfluous.

In one of the latest reports by a Washington based research and advocacy

firm, Global Financial Integrity (GFI), India lost $123 billion in black money in a
decade in illicit outflows. "While progress has been made in recent years, India
continues to lose a large amount of wealth in illicit financial outflows," said GFI
director Raymond Baker.
There has been a lot of hue and cry on the recovering of Indian black money stashed
abroad but surprisingly not much has been said about curtailing the ongoing
outflows of this money and the creation and supply of this black money within the
country. According to some estimates, India's underground economy has grown to a
huge figure of about 50% of the Indian GDP. Imagine what could be achieved had
this been taken care of by successive governments. And what can be achieved in
future by putting this money as investment in various urgent needs of the country
like education, infrastructure, healthcare etc. etc.. In fact the principle of
compounding holds very well in this case and in about five years time perhaps the
category of Below Poverty Line (BPL) families would vanish.
Black money creation is a result of corruption, bribery, kickbacks and tax evasion and
affects the GDP growth directly by making available less funds in the exchequer and
simultaneously increasing the expenditure on every new implementation and
maintenance. Its potential to blunt the Indian march to prosperity
through deleterious effects of fiscal and current account deficits, inflation and rupee
devaluation is immense and is being felt by the nation as in actual terms the growth
rates are quite dismal.
If somehow or the other Indian government can control corruption, bribery,
kickbacks and tax evasion, country's face and the plight of teeming millions could be
changed in no time through good governance, good economics and good politics in
that order. What ails India and the remedies thereof does address majority of these
problems and how to overcome them. It is a well known fact that the Indian
government and Indian polity understands all this but for some reason known only to
them are dilly dallying on this issue of prime and utmost interest to the future of this
country, its citizens and even their respective vote banks.
It is a widely acknowledged fact that the nation is suffering in its war against
corruption, black money, and maintaining law and order because of inadequate
manpower for tax enforcement, police department, investigation agencies and
judiciary. This invariably results in cases related to all streams lingering on for
decades. Punishing perpetrators of these crimes within a reasonable time frame has so
far remained a mirage. Thanks to the priorities of the rulers of the country in spite of
the fact that the government is aware of this fact, whole of the polity of the country
knows this, the citizenry of the country have been clamoring to have an effective
system in place for quite some time.
In recent times, a lot of cases about rapes and gang rapes have been reported from
different parts of the country. In fact a rape crime takes place every 20 minutes in this
country. It is a well known fact that majority of the cases go unreported because of
social stigma that falls on the victim. There is a lot of anger among the public over the
insensitivity on the part of government over an issue that affects all members of Indian
society. The protesters and all the well meaning citizens of the country are demanding
justice for the victim in the quickest possible time as also necessary government
measures so that such occurrences do not happen time and again. The deterrence has
to come from

 An awe striking punishment delivered quickly. Indian government promises to

set up fast track courts for such ghastly crimes but when. As it is the judiciary seems
to be suffering from inadequacy of numbers in its ranks which is further accentuated
by governments apathy towards filling in over 300 judges' posts lying vacant in High
Courts. This is a little over 33% of the sanctioned strength of all the high courts. No
wonder that Delhi high court alone has 61000 pending cases out of which 30% are
pending for more than five years. The nation's requirement is enhancement of
judiciary vacancies at all levels and it appears the polity's goal is exactly opposite of
that. Is it their insensitivity to the cause of good of the nation and its common citizens
or simple callousness or a simple ulterior motive of waiting for finding suitable
candidates from within their near and dear ones committed to them personally or
worst still their desire to allow all cases to linger for decades so that their innumerable
brethren in polity who are booked for economic and criminal offences to continue as
legislatures in the interest of their continuing in power.
 The alertness and effectiveness of police force. Here too a large number of
unfilled vacancies for reasons best known to these rulers with about 20% of Indian
police force is only on paper. This is further complicated by the fact that very
large contingents are deployed for VIP security, much in excess of the sanctioned
numbers which are as it is bloated to cater for the whims and fancies of these VIPs
rather than being need based.
In this given scenario, the intent of the government at the centre and the states leave
a lot be desired and perhaps the Indian citizen has to be satisfied only with lip service
unless and until some drastic changes are forced upon the present day polity and
rulers. After all they are the servants of the people and not their masters as is their
thinking at the moment.