Showing posts with label Finance Minister. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Finance Minister. Show all posts

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Serious disadvantage

The top-20% take everything away & in turn leave the bottom 80% with nothing, forever placing them at a serious disadvantage. In a democracy like ours, if this does not get upturned, the budget loses its essential quintessence...

It is an open secret that nothing like that has ever happened, as then the state of affairs would not have been as miserable as it stands today. Post independence, Union Budgets have always been a low key affair (relatively speaking!); but then, all this had gone in for a complete image makeover since 1991 when our current Prime Minister and then Finance Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, made budget a platform to announce economic reforms packages. Then onwards, each and every gentleman from North Block has tried his best to blatantly utilise this platform to gain political mileage, to such an extent that the budget at times delivered reckless policy packages, only appeasing the ruling political party’s stakeholders, with no concern to the vast majority. As a result, over the years, the budget, which ideally should put up with serious stock taking exercise(s), has been reduced to a weak document with persuasive political overtones.

What is amazing is the manner in which Finance Ministers, over the years, have been baselessly allocating invaluable financial resources, which are hard earned tax payers’ money, to earn brownie points from a few sections in connivance with popular media!! In fact, over the last few budgets, it became all the more evident that various budgetonomics of almost all FMs were more to gratify select top sections of the society. This can be corroborated by the fact that in almost all pre-budget talks and consultations, the FM talks to the big corporate and industry associations and rarely to any social watch group and representative of budget advocacy organisations. It’s very clear that the society and social sector representatives are not asked for any significant input or invited for active participation in either pre-budget discussions or textual proposals. The whole concept of budget for aam adami is nothing but a big farce, which has got lost somewhere in the crowd of big lobbyists. Consider this: The manner in which the fertilizer policy has been structured is simply to allow companies to profit, and not farmers in anyway. The resultant economic packages (that aim at reducing the budget deficit) have been consequently reducing the social sector allocations and expenditures.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
 
IIPM : The B-School with a Human Face
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Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Dalal Street mavens on the Budget.

You will find no number crunching, no jargon and no guru speak from so called Dalal Street mavens on the Budget. sutanu guru & pramod kumar bring you the real budget story – a story of the lead up to the 2014 Lok Sabha Elections.

Top Congress leaders did discuss issues like disinvestment, relaxation of foreign investment norms and other so called ‘reform’ oriented policies that so excite the corporate sector, Dalal Street and most of mainstream media in the country. But then it boiled down to answering that one key question: should Pranab Mukherjee present a budget for India or Bharat? Now, you and I know the verdict was unquestionably in favour of Bharat. In that sense, this budget makes a decisive break from past budgets in the sense that it is unabashedly about Bharat and does not even bother to offer token gestures to India. Says Congress general Secretary Digvijay Singh, “This budget was always going to be focused on the poor, the farmers and the bottom heap of the population.” Referring to the displeasure and disappointment shown by corporate India and Dalal Street, Singh adds, “Sure, some sections are justified in being unhappy because they have not got the benefits they were hoping for; but then the reality is that you cannot satisfy everybody.”

Absolutely. For decades, successive governments have paid lip service to the poor during budget time while doling out sops to the rich. This budget has finally broken through that vicious cycle of dishonesty, double speak and double standards. This dramatic transformation in the Congress has been going on for quite a while; only it was either largely missed or ignored or jeered by the media when Rahul Gandhi was trying to get across his message of connecting with the real India. Now, even brand gurus accept that the Congress strategy has worked wonders. Says, Santosh Desai, CEO of Future Brands, “The Congress has brought local leadership in their planning strategy over the last few years, which was not their forte in the past. Thus their focus is aam aadmi, but they deliver what they say. Thus, in branding, if you say and deliver, then the effect is clearly visible.” So Dalal Street might be crying. But Pranab Mukherjee has delivered what the Congress has been intending for a while – to completely convince the aam aadmi, the voter, that the government and the party are actually working for them. And don’t be mistaken in the belief that the Congress will use only the Union Budget to implement its strategy for 2014. Recall the exact words used by Pranab Mukherjee very early on his speech on July 6, “While we are determined to convert our words into deeds, members would appreciate that a single budget speech cannot solve all our problems, nor is the Union Budget the only instrument to do so.” So Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee is not the only ace that the Congress will deal while leading up to 2014. There are many other powerful and transformational jokers in the pack.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
 
IIPM : The B-School with a Human Face
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