07 May 2014, 01:00 PM IST
What if Narendra Modi does not become prime minister? Apart from a spurt in the sale of antidepressants in corporate India, what are other predictable outcomes? Is India slated to stay mired in feeble political leadership, slow-motion governance and tepid growth? Or is there a Plan B that can push the end of the world a little further away from May 16?
India's unwashed masses cannot be trusted to produce the electoral outcome Nariman Point knows is the best for the country. They live in villages for the most part, cannot access the intellectual heights that English news channels climb every evening, are driven and riven by primordial loyalties of caste and community, swayed by lineage and hero worship, and drawn to handouts.
In contrast, urban Indians think of caste only matrimonially and incidentally, think India First except on those rare, riotous occasions, curl their lips at desi heroes on offer, never, never give or take bribes or have any other underhand dealings and hate government handouts, unless, naturally, these are subsidised cooking gas, subsidised diesel, subsidised suburban fares and an occasional plot of land for the noble cause of industrialising India.
Troublingly, rural India has prospered like never before over the last 10 years. Fewer of their women and children die premature deaths and some 150 million of them have scrambled out of that nether region below the poverty line. These people have been pampered with job guarantee schemes and health insurance, and fed cheap food. Their kids have been crammed into schools and midday meals crammed into them.
Rural India has been bribed continuously over the two terms of the UPA with new roads. Power lines now stretch to 5.9 lakh out of India's 6.5 lakh villages. The UPA did not have the guts to scrap state monopoly in coal and fuel shortage ensures there is no power generation to feed these new lines laid to villages, even after adding 1,15,000 MW of power generation capacity to the 2004 installed capacity of 1,14,000 MW.
Work as Hobby
Equally fortunately, its unique identity project and associated inclusive banking and cash transfer schemes came too late and too piecemeal to create any real impact. Even more fortunately, most UPA politicians are blissfully unaware of their government's good work, having focused throughout on pelf and politicking against fellow leaders.
Still, rural voters can't be fully trusted to show enough sense to decisively vote in the Saviour, never mind the opinion polls that sample 70 people, on average, per constituency of a million diverse voters.
Would that be the end of the road for India? Hardly.
In the last quarter of fiscal 2013-14, the economy has improved. The external front has stabilised. The stock market has got back its mojo. A reformist RBI governor is preparing the ground for bond market to take off. Along with some action from asset reconstruction companies, which could buy off banks' non-performing infrastructure debt, a bond market should revive financing of economic activity across the board.
The Cabinet Committee on Investment has broken the logjam in clearances. Central government approvals no longer hold up investment. State bureaucracies do. Here, the general elections' obsession with development should do some good. Every state-level politician is now tuned to expectations that go beyond freebies to so-called "development."
All parties have committed themselves to a goods and services tax (GST) that would subsume all indirect taxes. Such a tax regime will boost collections from the known tax base and will expand the tax base because GST opens up multiple audit trails, following up which the tax authorities can reach hidden incomes.
Riches in Earth's Belly
The Supreme Court has lifted the ban on mining in Goa. Iron ore mining in Karnataka and Orissa should resume soon. The result should be a boost to mining and trucks, earthmovers and auto ancillaries. If the new government has the sense to invest in railway connections to potentially large coal mines with the existing rail network, coal supply will see ajump even without the needed structural reform in the sector.
Invest, Grow; Repeat
If the government has the added sense to scrap the Coal Mines Nationalisation Act, and puts up coal blocks for exploration and development on the lines of oil and gas blocks, a new virtuous cycle of investment and growth would be unleashed.
Some concerted efforts to free up additional spectrum for telecom, particularly for high-speed wireless broadband, and to complete the ongoing rollout of optical fibre to 2,50,000 panchayats will galvanise the economy.
All this depends on the articulation of renewed political mandate and authority at the Centre, not on any particular saviour.
La fin du Monde is, of course, French for the end of the world. It is also the name of a fine beer from Quebec. It certainly chills, froths and gives you a high, but has many splendid alternatives.
Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang
Not Quite La Fin du Monde, if Modi Doesn't Become PM
Dengan url
http://osteoporosista.blogspot.com/2014/05/not-quite-la-fin-du-monde-if-modi.html
Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya
Not Quite La Fin du Monde, if Modi Doesn't Become PM
namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link
Not Quite La Fin du Monde, if Modi Doesn't Become PM
sebagai sumbernya
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar