VOX POPULI
by
S Kamat
as
Aam Admi
Issue: 208 Date: 03.07.2017
Contents:
1.
Double
Standards In Loan Waivers - Farmers vs. Industry
2. Exempt Senior Citizens From Renewal Of KYC At Banks
3.
The Grandstanding
Approach On GST
4. 1600 Pennsylvania Road At 7, Race Course Road (now Lok Kalyan
Marg)
Double Standards In Loan Waivers - Farmers vs.
Industry
The newspapers are full of multi-page ads on
the initiatives taken by the Modi led BJP government in agriculture since 2014.
However, the little thing they are missing is the statistics of the number of
farmers who committed suicide in these last 3 years, which has been
distressingly on the increase. This figure should also have been put in the ads
to bring up the other side of the story. 7 farmers took their own lives in the
last 15 days in MP according to newspaper reports. It is not the number of
schemes that the government has which is important but what benefits have
accrued out of them to the farmers. If the farmers have been so much benefited
by these measures, then why are they committing suicide? Most of the credit for
the improvement in agriculture production goes to the monsoon and has nothing
to do with Modi or his policies. But the problem is that the Modi government
does not know what to do when there is a glut and neither did it know what to
do when there was a scarcity because of drought some time back. Looking very
objectively at the farmer problems across the country, one feels that the path
of industrialisation that Nehru followed for the country may not have been
correct. In contrast Gandhiji's rural based economy model would have probably
been more apt. At the time of Independence in 1947 with the majority of the
work force involved in agriculture, if we had put the emphasis on village based
economies supporting farmers, then their lot today would have been different.
This is not to say that we should have neglected industry but the argument is
that more emphasis should have been given for agriculture so that we would have
farmers given equal status as city dwellers while today a farmer is looked down
though he plays a significant role in our economy.
More alarming is the manner in which farmers
are being treated by the government. While professing to be their friend, when
it comes to looking at waival of their loans, all kinds of questions are being
asked. And all kinds of hurdles are placed in their way. These range from the
philosophical like waival of loans in principle is bad. Is this applicable to
farmers alone? Or are other sectors of society included? Like for industry is
loan waival a good thing? That is exactly what the banks have been doing from
the time they started operations. On the pretext of the loans gone bad, the
banks have been writing off these from their books each year. This has
encouraged industry to have bad loans reach alarming proportions in the last
decade, more so in the last 5 years, where the NPA's have reached humongous
proportions. This has prompted everyone from the Finance Minister, the RBI and
the top management of the banks to get into the act to find a solution to the
problem. While rushing in to resolve industry's loans, there is no one to look
at resolving farmer's loans. Granted that write-off of loans is not a good
practice and will only encourage more default. But then this rule should apply
equally to all who take loans. You cannot preferentially waive loans of one
sector and then throw the rule book at another sector. Thus you cannot have one
rule for the goose and one for the gander. Therefore waive the farmer loans
this time and make it clear to them that this thing will never be done ever
again. Parallely ban loan waivers across the board for all sectors of the
economy.
Even after State after State announcing waival
of farm loans starting from UP, the farmer is at his wit's end to find who exactly
will give him the relief. The Maharashtra government has tied itself up in
knots on the farmer loan waival scheme and in that process put the farmer at
the Centre of a maze of rules and asked him to find his own way out. This has
not helped the farmers accept the scheme and the farmers are thinking of going
back to agitation mode. This is being done when the farmers are the most
deserving for the loan waivers. They are the ones who put food on your table on
which not only their survival depends but also yours.
In contrast when it comes to industry as per
the latest news in the financial papers the government is thinking of bailing
out the Adani and Tata groups for their projects of shore based STPP in
Gujarat that are dependent on imported coal. With the price of imported coal
sky-rocketing, these plants have become unviable and are in distress. If the
government does not step in the plants may have to be shut down. The
investments run into thousands of crores like the Vijay Mallya Kingfisher dues.
The data on the employment and investment figures for the 2 plants with figures
on number of persons employed if examined will show that farmers debts,
their number though huge have a per capita debt that is
low. Since by any logic whom should this government have been looking to
provide relief? But whom are they actually bailing out? The big
industrialists with deep pockets! This clearly establishes the
rationale of this government and that of its institutions where instead of
spreading happiness they indulge in crony capitalism.This also is the
contradiction that persists with this Modi led government. In speech they
claim to be pro-poor but in action they are blatantly pro-rich!
As said earlier this Modi
led government is actually anti-poor if you look at their policies. Like
even for the latest disaster that they are unleashing on the Indian economy
without adequate preparation is the GST. Under this hundreds of small
businesses that supply to manufacturers will get wiped out because they are not
able to provide the documentation that will enable the manufacturer to set off
the input taxes. In the same way the government has been going on a
publicity blitz on how for the common man GST will be a boon and reduce
cost of living. While government banks PSB's have been sending their
customers messages that Service Tax is going up under the GST regime and
to be prepared for it. What stopped the government from being open about
GST and have the true picture to the people. As for crocodile tears shed
by this Modi led government a confirmation has come from
Rajasthan. Under Hitler in Nazi Germany and in their occupation of Europe
during WWII the houses of Jews were marked with clearly visible signs on their
front doors so that this community could be easily identified. Eight decades
later in Rajasthan under Vasundhara Raje's BJP government, the houses of poor
who avail subsidised food grains through government schemes are marked with
yellow paint with visible letters that they are - Garib or
Poor. This is very much consistent with the present BJP government both at the
Centre and at the States where they are in power that thrives on the India
Shining theme of catering to the needs of the rich and the yuppie class and
decimating the poor. Could our officials in the State administration and senior
politicians like Raje not have handled this matter more delicately? We hope
that the Nazi pogroms will not follow! The random lynchings about beef
are not the precursor to more terrible times for our poor.
Exempt
Senior Citizens From Renewal Of KYC At Banks
I am a Senior Citizen and have been banking with Banks
mostly PSB's for the last 50 years across the country where I have been
resident for various periods of time during my professional career. In this
connection it is my considered opinion that Senior Citizens above the age of 60
years should be exempted from the submission of fresh KYC at scheduled banks
for existing accounts. This is completely unnecessary since the appearance of
Senior Citizens rarely changes every 2 years after which fresh KYC is to be
submitted as stipulated by banks currently. Copies of documents like Aadhaar
cards etc. which are already with banks for existing accounts, to be
re-submitted only adds to the wastage of paper. Sometimes copies of photos are
not easily available with Senior Citizens. In this day and age of soft copies
why e-filing is not implemented for photos etc. if at all the KYC process is to
be followed. However, Senior Citizens should be exempted in any case from this
KYC process for their existing accounts since this is a needless activity
putting people like us to strain and unnecessary inconvenience.
Regulations need to be made in the context of clear necessity and not for the
sake of complying with some meaningless regulation. If this suggestion is
accepted then it will also reduce this clear avoidable workload to the
banking system. I have emailed both RBI and my existing PSB Bank, Canara Bank
on this issue. However, it is 10 days now and I do not have a reply let alone
an acknowledgement. When on the RBI website when I posted the above suggestion
on their Help/Contact Us/Feedback option, I got a standard reply which has no
relation to my input to them. The same is attached here for your information.
This goes to show that RBI is just responding to close the query rather than
tackle the suggestion in any meaningful way. Postscript: The approach
here is for some bad apples in the basket, all apples are being considered bad
with the onus on being certified good lying with the good apple.
The Grandstanding Approach On GST
The GST ICBM: Jaitley’s Advice – Grin & Bear It
Arun Jaitley was bent upon the
grandstanding approach when the BJP government had a midnight session
of Parliament to launch the GST regime. GST is an economic measure and was not
deserving of being accorded the status of a midnight Parliament session for its
launch. About the timing, no wonder that the Agriculture Minister was taken
unwell midway through the session. The Finance Minister was probably not
considering the fact that the last time his government launched anything at
midnight, it was on Nov 8th, 2016 when Narendra Modi announced demonetisation
of the Rs. 500 & Rs. 1000 notes, which has proved to be a disaster to the
economy. Going by the same precedent GST should not unleash the same fate on
the nation and tie up the economy in knots. With the multiplicity of rates and
the lack of readiness with computerisation among the small traders community
and issue of Internet connectivity across the entire country, there does
not seem much hope beyond yet another fiasco. By all logical reasoning it
should have been pushed out from 1st July 2017 when people were more prepared
for it both infrastructure and equipment wise. Or it could have been launched
in stages big business first and then the small businesses categorised by
turnover over a couple of years. The stubbornness of this - Now or Never
approach puts a lot of strain on the common people who want to get on with
their livelihood.
GST will also sound the deathknell of
small traders and hawkers. These are the people who will now join the endless
line of the unemployed. With no jobs for the people and with the lynching mobs
rampaging in the country we are in for troubled times. The emphasis on
computerisation is what will sink the GST. The government has not
learnt its lessons from the one day strike by pharmacies against the new
procedure which laid emphasis on computerisation or the cashless economy
which is fading out fast. If pharmacies a better class of shops cannot
accept computerisation then how can we accept kirana stores
to use it? While claiming to support the common man and the poor this
government is pulling the rug from under their feet, all in the interest
of big supermarkets and malls. An example here is that in Goa with great
fanfare e-mahiti ghars or information and assistance kiosks were
opened across the State about a decade ago particularly near the
government offices to assist the common man to get various documents
from the administration. Last month they were all officially closed since
patronage was dwindling and the computerisation in the government had not
kept pace leading people to continue thronging government offices to meet
officials and sort out their issues.
Narendra Modi while in the US
also talked about GST but in India he had rarely spoken about it. He
called GST a game changer and asked US management schools to study how it will
be implemented. But surprisingly he did not touch upon Demonetisation
and asked US colleges to study this massive reform measure he brought in.
Maybe this is because he looks to the future and rarely sees the trail of pain
he has left behind him! This BJP government has unleashed another WMD
(Weapon of Mass Destruction) or WMDI (Weapon of Modi) on the Indian people in
the form of GST. First it was the Demonetisation that took out the steam from
the growth of the Indian economy, then it was the failed fizz of the Cashless
Economy and now the biggest reform of it all, as claimed by Arun Jaitley, the
GST ICBM. From all this bombardment there is also no place to hide what with
this government having forgotten to build the bomb shelters. The problem
with this BJP government is that they think big but fall flat in implementation
of any measures and rarely think through the impact of their initiatives. GST
will one suspect meet the same fate.
Modi and his government are obsessed
about two things black money and revenue generation. No one is denying that
these are important issues but while tackling them they should target their
guns properly and aim at those that break the law and are involved in these
nefarious activities. This initiative should be isolated from the mainstream of
life of the people of India. But the approach of Arun Jaitley is that everyone
is a criminal until proven otherwise. This is a rather sad state of affairs of
a government that is of the people, by the people and for the people.
1600 Pennsylvania Road At 7, Race Course Road (now Lok Kalyan
Marg)
Don is reported to have given our Domi (a corruption of Modi) a walking tour of the White House. Mark my words Domi will want a spanking new residence for the Indian Prime Minister on the lines of the White House. Spend maybe another Rs. 100 crores on it at Lok Kalyan Marg! Another nail in the coffin for India's farmers and the poor. While they starve and commit suicide, we have our politicians gallivanting on foreign tours and splurging money on luxuries. Even the lowliest MLA today drives a SUV costing a minimum of Rs. 8 Lakhs these days mostly paid for or subsidised by the government while the farmers have to beg for Rs. 10,000 to buy seeds during the sowing season. Ram Nath Kovind, the NDA nominee for President reached Patna Airport in a Mercedes on his way to meet Modi upon being nominated. Why all this colonial ostentation? Where is the good old Ambassador car?
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