SUBSIDIES: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman increased the budget for creating fresh infrastructure by 35% even as she cut subsidy on food for the poor and the MGNREGA scheme

BY RAJAN NARAYAN

AND a few stray thoughts for yet another Saturday. For a Saturday following the week when Nirmala Sitharaman like the reportedly notorious French Queen Marie Antoinette, told Indians to eat cake if they did not have bread. For a Saturday following the week when Nirmala Sitharaman is all set to take away any cash in coins that we may have in our pockets or under the bed. For a Saturday following the week when ironically during the third wave of Covid-19 the FM has reduced the subsidy on the supply of rations to the poorest of the poor. For a Saturday following the week when Nirmala Sitharaman appears to have decided to convert the entire country into a digital world where we will even have a Digital University. For a Saturday following the week when we discovered that it is more profitable to be a dead Covid-19 patient than a living Covid-19 patient.

MORE DEVELOPMENT
AND a few stray thoughts on Finance Minister of India Nirmala Sitharaman increasing the expenditure on infra-structure by 35%. What this affectively means is that not just Goa but the entire country will have more bridges and more super expressways and more steel plants and mega industry products. The logic behind this massive investment in infra-structure is that it will generate jobs. The jobs in turn will generate demand for goods and services. This will result in a boom in the economy.
But till the infrastructure projects are ready and the jobs become a reality how will the poor survive? How will the several crore of people who have been rendered unemployed because of Covid-19 lockdowns get their dal-roti? As an industrialist pointed out there are very few companies in the country which can put up mega industry projects.
In fact, the only company which has the technical knowledge and the ability to put up mega projects is L & T (Larsen & Toubro), originally a German company. But even a Larsen & Toubro cannot build a prestigious Atal Sethu if it is forced to sub-contract its construction to the chor like Venkaiah Rao. The potholes and flooding of the late Manohar Parrikar’s pride — Atal Sethu — is due to corrupt contractor Venkaiah Rao. Even Manohar Parrikar did not have the guts to sack Venkaiah Rao who is a close relative of the Vice-President Venkaiah Naidu.
In framing a budget, finance ministers normally consider two aspects of the economy. On the one hand they look at the supply side, which means posting industrial production so that enough goods and services are available to aam aadmi. The alternative of course is to focus on the demand side which will ensure that the poorest of the poor will have enough money in their pockets to buy goods and services.
There is no point in building fancy bridges with entertainment towers as in the case of the Zuari Bridge, l if people do not have the money to buy even onions and tomatoes. What is no point in building huge expressways like the one proposed between Mumbai and Goa when the people do not have excess to quick and economic primary public transport in Goa to meet their daily commuting to work and back?
THE big joke is that the Goa Trinamool Congress has offered Rs10,000 to Rs30,000 to Goa’s taxi mafia — providing it comes to power. Never mind that there is no public bus service after 7pm to any part of Goa. An example of the thinking of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is the now famous or notorious Uttaranchal E-Way. An expressway which is so strong that even huge military aircraft can land on it. But there are civilian airports and airports for military aircraft and the air force. What need is here for a government to pour in so much money into so many concrete highways for aircraft?

CLEVER NIRMALA
AND a few stray thoughts on Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman who is all set to take away any cash in coins that we may have in our pockets or under the bed. A lot of people have started keeping their savings in lockers or under their beds, as they do not trust banks any longer. Narendra Modi announced demonetization suddenly in the belief that this would wipe out all the stored black money in the country. For those who may not be familiar with the concept, black money is any money which is not accounted for and for which tax has not paid. Like the huge amounts of money being spent by all the political parties, and particularly the Trinamool Congress, where no bills are raised or receipts issued. So overnight all the Rs500 and Rs1,000 notes which ordinary citizens used to carry for shopping or for paying medical expenses became valueless. They had to be exchanged for the new Rs2,000 notes for which few have adequate change to convert into smaller denomination change.
If Narendra Modi’s presumption that there were huge amounts of black money in the country were true, a large part of the currency in circulation would not have come back to the banks. On the contrary it was discovered that more than 99% of the currency in circulation at the time of demonetization came back to banks. Which means there was no black money or that BJP permitted its friends some golmaal in converting black money to white. Which is very easy particularly in Goa.
All you have to do is to go to one of the casinos offshore or onshore. Take as many suitcases filled with cash as you want to. Do not gamble with the cash but hand it over to the cashier at the casino. In exchange for the cash the cashier will give you a cheque, though he may deduct 30% towards taxes. Just last week it was reported that the Goa police recovered Rs6 crore from a hawala trader in Margao. The police of course refuse to give the name of the hawala traders.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is going one step further. She is planning to abolish currency in the form of notes and coins altogether. They will be replaced by the digital rupee. This is like having a google pay account. You don’t pay any cash even if you are buying Rs100 worth of vegetables. You just transfer the amount digitally through the mobile phone from your account to the account of the person whom you bought any goods from.
The FM is not concerned with what happens to poor people who cannot afford a smartphone or have the resources to use it in an educated manner. The minimum requirement and payment through digital currency is a smartphone. What do people like me who are digitally challenged do if hard cash is abolished and we are all expected to go digital? The process has already begun with fines being collected with withdrawal of Rs10,000. Except that with the amount of hacking going on because of poor levels of digital literacy, the chances of being cheated are higher.
The proposal for the digital currency is linked directly to crypto currency. Unlike even digital currency crypto currency is an alternative form of making payments. The crypto units which are very widely traded are not issued by any banks. They are issued by groups of individuals or companies through the usage of block chain technology. Block chain technology uses multiple computers which are completely interconnected and will automatically record every transaction regardless of whether it is a deposit or a withdrawal.
In his anxiety to be a global power, Narendra Modi wants India to have its own version of crypto currency. Which will be regulated by the RBI. The catch is that there will be a 30% tax on any transaction or transfer of digital assets.

NO RATIONS SUBSIDY
AND a few stray thoughts on how the FM has reduced the subsidy on the supply of rations to the poorest of the poor. This at a time went Goa and the rest of the country is still in the grip of the third wave of Covid-19. The statistics show that unemployment is higher than ever before. That the biggest victims of covid-19 are the contract labour (constitutes 80% of total labor force).
Even the biggest companies in the country do not offer permanent employment for the majority of their staff. Whether it is a fancy car or a mobile or a latest Apple version, the components are subcontracted to countries where the labor cost is the lowest. The much coveted Apple phone which can cost up to $200 is made in China where labor does not even get $5 for a 12-hours working day.
During the second wave of Covid-19 the prime minister had announced that free rations would be supplied to the poorest of the poor. In the national capital the rations were delivered at the doorstep of the poor sections of society.
Besides the rations, the subsidy on agriculture produce, have been increased during the two years of Covid-19 lockdowns. This was to compensate farmers who suffered heavy losses. Similarly, help was extended to workers who lost their jobs. The consequence is that nobody has money to buy anything. Except of course the very rich.
In the absence of demand the factories were shutting down, creating more unemployment. This is the time when the finance minister should increase subsidies to put some money into pockets to stimulate demand. Unless there is demand for staple goods and services ranging from toothbrushes to soaps their production will fall.
As it is happened in the case of two- wheelers, the production of which experienced a very sharp fall consequent to no demand. The worst aspect the budget for 2022 is the sharp cut in the allotment for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005 (MGNREGA). This was a special scheme introduced by the Manmohan Singh Congress government to create jobs for landless labour.
Prior to the budget there was even a proposal for urban areas where unemployment is even higher. But the country’s FM and her boss PM seem to think that if India makes more bridges and more sophisticated battles tanks and fighter aircraft, enough jobs will be generated – which will make projects like MGNREGA unnecessary. Except that mega projects take mega time to construct in India by which time all the jobless people will be dead.

WORTH MORE DEAD THAN ALIVE
AND a last stray thoughts when we discovered that it is more profitable to be a dead Covid-19 patient then a living Covid-19 patient. It would appear that it is more profitable to die of Covid-19 then to live after Covid-19. The government of Goa and probably other state governments in the country have dismantled Covid-19 centers for treating patients. Anyone who tests positive is asked to isolate at home for seven days. Never mind that 80% Indians do not have homes large enough for patients to practice isolation of quarantine time.
The biggest problem is that patients do not know whether they the simple Omicron or the deadly delta infection. The Union Health Ministry has even issued a guideline saying that if you are asymptomatic after seven days of isolation, you don’t have to test again. Apparently the Covid-19 virus remains in your blood stream for as long as six weeks.
The real reason is that the government does not want to spend money on vaccines. There is no question of aam adami getting booster doses. The result is that in the absence of the large Covid-19 camps or centers which had come up during the second wave, the majority of covid patients have no choice but to do seven days of isolation at home.
Except for the kit of medicines supplied by Public Health Centres they patients are not even daily contact with a doctor assigned to them to check their condition on a day to day basis (as mandated). So even if the positivity rate in Goa is going down the number of deaths continue to go up.
In the month of January there have been over 200 deaths. Even though the positivity rate (the number of individuals testing positive if they have got themselves tested) the number of deaths is over 200. In the majority of fatalities, claims the Directorate of Health Services, the patients were brought dead to the hospital or they died within 24 hours of admission. There is something fishy about this.
It is entirely possible that those who came in reported dead or who died within 24 hours of hospitalization died of cancer or heart attack or some other co-morbidity – but relatives may bribe a resident doctor on duty to declare the patient as a covid positive dead patient! This is because under the Central government scheme the family of anyone who dies from Covid-19 gets a compensation of Rs2 lakh.