The coming state elections would be contested on critical issues – the jobs, wages, inflation, development and actual growth.
The economy is in crisis. Prices are rising. The rupee is receding. Farm prices are unable to match the inflation. Cash crunch remains. The businesses are in a fix.
It is also true that despite this GDP is marking growth in statistical terms. So are the tax revenues. It gives a mixed feeling. Does the growth mean well-being of the people? The people are reportedly benefitting through 431 official programmes.
The opposition is clamouring on prices and the supposed corruption in Rafael deal, Vyapam in Madhya Pradesh. But none questions why over three lakh were recruited by non-productive police forces?
The people are keenly looking at all the parties. Very few possibly have touched the core.
Hindutva, soft or hard, has become a common denominator. Is it because at the political plain, the players do not have understanding of the hard hitting issues? Ram for BJP and Rampath Gaman Yara for Congress are countering each other. Yes, the non-muslim vote has become the target after many decades indicating that secular appeasement failed.
Except for softly nudging on the prices, opposition till now is seemingly has lost the nerves to raise hard-hitting issues. The wholesale price index is an indicator. Since 2010, prices have risen by over 65 percent. The political parties are at their wits end to control it. They do not even recognize that spiraling prices are a problem.
They are raising the bogey that it cannot be checked. It is devastating and destabilizing Indian economy. It leads to continuous wage rise, price spiral, job losses and upset business and government expenditure pattern. It is causing untold misery to the people and raising the actual poverty or deprivation.
No one has questioned when the average cost of construction is Rs 5 crore per kilometer, how an eight-km stretch cost Rs 845 crore.
Most of the prices rise because of government policies, fees, rising fares of railways, buses, road and municipal tolls repeated GSTs on products that should not be taxed. The GST has led to double taxation on many items including house tax and many other services. It has made food expensive though the farmer continues to suffer.
The road construction itself has become a profiteering venture for the selected few. No political party has questioned the rationale of toll despite over Rs 1.13 lakh crore collection through petrol cess. No one has questioned when the average cost of construction is Rs 5 crore per kilometer, how an eight-km stretch cost Rs 845 crore.
The road toll, which some political parties promised to scrap in 2014, rising annually, is irrational. The world over it is based on a factor of gradual reduction. The concept is if the part of the cost has been recovered, as in the case Delhi-Noida-Direct toll bridge decision of the Supreme Court, the residual would require less realization or none.
Taxation is equally irrational on most products – the automobiles being the starkest. One needs to question why should one have to pay three years of insurance premium on which companies do not give a dime in interest payment. Why should registration charges be at eight or more percent? Why should one have to pay for parking charges, when every parking has high fee? It shows Indian bureaucracy or politicians do not know what they are doing to devastate the market.
On petrol prices too, the daily increase is uncalled for. Nobody has questioned the pattern. Apart none has said that it is benefitting the private oil companies, who are prospecting oil from Indian shores at less than $ 40 a barrel and selling at $ 80 or more. It shows that there is lack of will to check the prices.
The political players are apparently not in touch with the rural realities either. The farmers be it potato or wheat are not getting the MSP, which have been raised by the government on many crops. The cash crunch and raids by taxmen have convoluted the rural market. The payments now are delayed that earlier used to be almost immediate. This retards business growth.
Similarly, nobody has talked of gobbling of people’s money as Indian railways do with a policy of no refund of fare for cancellations. Neither any political party has demanded a probe into this unholy trend. It is also strange that despite billions of rupees of unethical earnings, how do the railways remain financially sick?
The public sector road undertakings also have been recklessly increasing fares. Has anybody made it a poll issue? The poor rail and road travelers are the worst sufferers. It wrecks their economy. It makes lives of students difficult.
The education itself from primary to university has become too costly. While there is lip sympathy, no one says why private universities should be charging so high tuition and other fees? It is pushing the student community under heavy debt. The quality of education suffers as the private universities do not pay the stipulated salaries be it as per UGC or AICTE.
The political thinking on creating excellence in knowledge and education is missing – a concern that was seen in the first and second five-year plans.
Mere bragging on number of institutions is not the solution. Every year thousands of such institutions go out of business.
The business chambers whisper about difficult conditions and high costs of operations. But lo! No political party talks of it.
Surprisingly enough, the banks have been looted by a few hundred Indians and rest of 99.99 percent suffers. The high NPAs have slashed deposit interest rates, made bank deposits non-lucrative as the little interest accrued – it is not earning – is gobbled up by tax deducted at source (TDS), a detrimental concept.
Over Rs 11,000 crore have been earned by “loss making” PSU banks from those who cannot maintain minimum balance. Billions are tucked in banks on so-called “dead” accounts, which are not allowed to be revived. Has any opposition party questioned it or the rationale of taxing interest accruals that has hit the senior citizens and other poor earners?
India’s tax revenue, particularly income tax, as per statistics have gone up by about 16 percent. So has refunds and actual collections are not over 6.6 percent the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) says, in August. The political parties despite this has neither called for doing away with income tax nor vociferously raised the tax terror issue. The crisis remains but the doctor is missing.