Professor Raghuraman Rajan says:
"State ownership in many areas no longer serves the public interest, and the only reason it continues is because it serves the many vested interests that benefit from the status quo – the public sector workers who have cushy undemanding safe jobs, the unions who enjoy the power, the occasional corrupt executive who rakes in bribes, and the minister who enjoys the patronage." Full speech is here.
Last two days, I participated in the first Regional Conference on "Reforms for Citizen Centric Governance" held in Hyderabad. There are many new innovations taking place at State level in terms of improving the services delivery.
Interesting readings:
Indian economist MGR has written a wonderful piece. It is always interesting to ponder on the following paragraphs:
- …the aam
aadmi is not just the mango man who sells the delicious fruit but someone
special that every political party in the country is concerned about and seeks
to represent. I had to also mention that, ironically, while all political
parties seek to represent him and profess to bleed for him, no one actually
cares for him. Although most often he himself does not know that he is the
centre of their universe and is a subject of representation, he is too confused
to know what he really wants. Perhaps, he would like to be left alone, but
every political party knows what is good for him and he has no business to seek
anything else.
- I am yet
to find a politician who would want to raise more money from taxes. It is also
hard to find a politician who would want to reduce expenditures. While in our
private lives we all would like to save huge sums to bequeath wealth to our
progeny, we do not care if the government borrows large amounts of money year
after year and leaves a huge debt burden to the future generation. We do not
realise that today’s borrowing is tomorrow’s taxes. Perhaps, most Indians do
not know that every Indian today carries a debt burden of R46,000, which will
have to be paid back by way of higher taxes in the next few years.
- The only
way to shore it up is to undertake reforms that will bring in more foreign
investment. In addition, in the case of retail trade, lack of competition has
led the neighbourhood shopkeeper charging at least what is printed as MRP,
which, unfortunately, has no relationship with the cost of production. The only
way to minimise exploitation is to increase competition.
- There is
no alternative for the country but to reform, and reform can be painful. The
past sins of controls will catch up to increase the travails of the aam aadmi.
We still have a number of prices determined by government fiat and, as and when
they are decontrolled, the prices will rise to haunt him. If you don’t allow
the markets to determine the prices, you will create more problems.
