This govt is a cheat and NREGA is a classic example. It is beyond the point that Sonia Gandhi who has nothing to do with the ideology that Congress party was ever formed with or the fact that she has simply stolen a popular left-wing ideology to decimate the left parties and win over their voters. It is also not about the fact that she is devastatingly using this program to form an invincible voter base for herself and her party - extreme poor who are conned with NREGA plus the frequent noise about Hindu terrorism to win the 20% minority vote would basically ensure that she can never lose any elections, come what may 70000 Crore or 2 lakh crore scams, but she can keep winning elections. It is also not about the fact that if this ultra huge investment is instead made towards developing human resources, skill sets, education and health sectors, it would go a long way in nation building. It is also not about the fact that when people are more educated, have better health facilities and improved skills, why would they vote for a party that only promises dole. With skills, they want to vote for anybody that promises them employment (which is more difficult) while with dole, they would only vote for the one that gives them the dole.
What I am saying is that our economist PM knows very well that scheme is not about alleviating poverty, but simply about making the middle class poor. If you dole Rs 100 to everyone, even a class X student can say that prices will rise without output
Re: Classic example
by prem k on Jan 07, 2011 02:43 AM
If one kg of rice costs Rs 10 and you give Rs. 100 to everyone, it is obvious that the price of rice will go beyond Rs 100 because there is not enough rice to feed everyone. Only the bar for prices rises to a point that only those who have income beyond that bar can start affording rice. Does an economist PM not understand this? We had an India where 40% people earned Rs. 10, 40% earned Rs. 100, 10% earned Rs 1000 and 10% earned more than Rs 10000. Now if you decide to alleviate the poverty of 40% by simply giving them cash of Rs. 100, can you imagine what will happen? Has it reduced poverty? Is it not something that people who are running the govt understand? NREGA is simple a con scheme to con poor people into believing that their poverty is coming to an end. Before these poor people realize what is happening, Sonia Gandhi will siphon off several lakhs of crore and settle in some far off island. Manmohan Sing is already too old and thus is not bothered about whatever will happen five-ten years after his death.
The only way out is to make these 40% come out from the clutches of extreme poverty is to develop their education and skills. For a start, a scheme like NREGA should have concentrated on building tangible infrastructure and then value the development while giving out the labour wages. A tangible creation would create efficiencies and thus would keep growth and inflation in sync.
