BY the nature of Growth: Indian Inc.

Shashikant Kumar
We Indians are supported a lot by the government machinery from the getting admission of children to marriage to agriculture to industry to even getting richer. Is this is what growth means? The policy making of the democratic nation has in its helm of affair ignited the growth prospects of those who have and those who do not have a penny live. We have worked for all who matters in the growth oriented economic policies. From the Budget of the nation, state and district we have moved towards budgeting the Panchayats and eventually villages. The economic flow of money from one source of distribution to another has resulted in the money accumulated in these sources of power to distribute through more than 5000 different schemes meant for all the sections of the society from the Schedules Castes to Schedules Tribe to Women to Children to the minorities and now even NRI ! We have taken care of all the beneficiaries. But what makes us shout our lungs out for the 700 million Indians who were supposed to benefit (excluding the 10 million rich and 2 million billioners India has produced). We have targeted our reforms and libralisation for the 2 percent of the industrial and rich community. We have created class divide in the society by keeping the masses aloof from the benefits by making the issue of reservation, minority rights, environmental and intellectual movements. Those who have received the benefits of the libral government policies and reform have been churning the wheels of economic freedom to make maximum out of it. As if they are the Devtas and masses are Asuras. The masses once more than 80 percent were dependent on the agriculture are not allowed to stay in the fields instead are forced labour in the factories, live in slums of metros, slave out in Information Technology Parks and malls owned by the elites. This was not the dream of the martyrs and freedom fighters of the nation. The fight was not only to give the country freedom from the British rule but also the manner in which the resources of rural India was exploited by the industries, government and elites. The setting of Indian industries during those time was answer to the capital intensive and export oriented industries mainly created for the empire. We started well by setting the large public industries which were largely from the public money and people from the country proudly called it Ratna. But now what remains is stones which hamphers the growth of nation. The burden of development cannot be left to the public industries, the private sector have contributed enough in making the money spin, but this was not for You and Me but for the enterprise owners and shareholders. Where else than you find the dwindling the Small and Medium Enterprise, death of cottage and household industries. The opening of competition between the Indian small and Medium Industries with the mega multinational companies instantly killed the industries already survived on the borrowed oxygen from the government. The protective covers of the industries were removed to die own death in the heat of the competition.

Now about the agriculturists the burden of the population was cited as important point in limitation of the planners to allow the farmers and their families to depend on it. What makes the development slow, not the land availability but lacking the per hectare productivity (we have not developed the technology). The fruits of the first green revolution in the country cannot be harnessed even after thirty years we have to move on and take the realities of the ground on our hand. The land record system in the nation is bad and we have not maintained proper natural resource inventory, why we want to destroy the agricultural lands only in the name of the industry. Why we cannot develop the bad land, waste land and arid land for the benefit of agriculture? The area under the irrigation has not increased as per the desired scale in our states. Most of the developed states have shun agriculture in lieu of industrialization are facing the shortage of area under the food crops. The backward states like UP, Bihar and Rajasthan has enough land to support the population, even if do not bother to understand the carrying capacity of the land. The declining productivity is also result of the poor fertilizer policy (excessive subsidy and use) resulting in making unfruitful utilization of it on the not so required area. How to set things right or change the nature of growth? We have experienced in country that one can set up an industry worth billions of Rupees in India without any license today, but a farmer in U.P. can neither set up a brick kiln unit, nor a rice shelling plant, nor a cold storage, and not even cut a tree standing on his own private field without bribing several officials. The impact of reforms on the poor has been adverse because of their vulnerable socio-economic position, and in such a case spending money on development schemes without improving their bargaining power will further impoverish them. The sociological and political factors that lie behind the institutional constraints on poverty reduction get little mention in the government programmes. How existing policies impact on the poor is hardly analysed by the rural development departments of central and state governments. Government intervention should not only improve the incomes of the poor, but their bargaining power vis-a-vis the moneylenders, landlords and bureaucracy. Such empowering measures need to be distinguished from the populist measures which merely act as doles and do not enable the poor to stand on their own legs or fight for their rights. Empowerment is good in itself, leads to higher incomes, and checks corruption and arbitrary use of power. In the past this was sought to be achieved through land reforms, although it appears to be a closed chapter now. Another very important element which is emerging in the country is non-governmental organizations (NGO). There may be NGOs just making money and doing nothing wonderful, but there are also a large number of good NGOs who are working independent of government and they would after some time be very powerful and the Civil Services would have to compete with them. In Bangladesh, 80 to 90% of all development funds are spent through the NGOs. The coming years will see increasing importance of NGOs in policy making and implementation in India too.

Forget the Civil Servents their days are numbered so long as government controlled all the goodies of the world, the civil servants looked upon government as mai-baap and defined their relation with the government as jeena yahan marna yahan, iske siva jaana kahan, and they were prepared to do all kinds of wrong things for politicians. But today there are several escape routes, and new powerful forces are emerging in India making it a truly plural society. Just to give one example, in the 70s states wooed Government of India if they wanted projects, and this required political manouvering, now the states have to woo private capital and specially foreign capital, and these new donors will demand better administration and better professional management. It is a very healthy trend that the monopoly of capital, the monopoly of powers, the monopoly of authority which government enjoyed in the past is breaking down today. The civil servants have to operate in the open market, and establish their credentials and then only they would be able to build up their careers. Top jobs would be given not on the basis of pulls or manipulations but expertise. In the Finance Ministry today, which is the Mecca of all IAS officers, the three top positions are occupied by academics. It is they who make all decisions, and not any pen pushing bureaucrat. And knowledge is going to emerge as one of the most important resource of the 21st century. Marx talked about three resources: land, capital and labour, I think if he had been alive today, Marx would have added knowledge as the most important resource, much more important than land, labour and capital. The new pressures on the political system generated by judiciary, NGOs, an elite which is independent of government, and International donor agencies are likely to act as a sobering influence on political irresponsibility. It also creates a favourable climate in which some of the reform proposals designed to give more functional autonomy to the civil service and to make it resist unwanted political pressure would be acceptable to the decision makers. You may comment!!