DOES ANY ONE CARE FOR TAX PAYER’S MONEY?
Sometimes I wonder even tax payers don’t care about their money. Had it not been so, they would have protested about their money being used to shore up inefficient, corrupt banking system which caters to rich Business people. Tax payers in India are treated like dirt. Government, politicians and business men use their money to promote their self-interest. It is like anybody can put a hand in till of tax payers money and can take as much as they want and get away with it. Everyone is accomplice in this loot. Let me take few recent scandals viz. Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi. They have decamped with approximately Rs.20, 000 crores of tax payer’s money. How can banks lend to such people without adequate collateral security? What is the role of Central Bank RBI? What happened to the oversight mechanism? Despite bad loans (NPAs) to the tune of Rs.8, 00,000 crores how many bankers are arrested and prosecuted? What is the role of finance ministry? What are so called mandarins of Finance ministry are doing when the loot is going on under their nose? How come these economic offenders get away from the country without political connivance? We all know it takes lot of time to extradite these persons. In case of Vijay Mallya we had seen that our government is unable to produce solid evidence to convince British Courts to speed up extradition. Once again tax payers money is used to this litigation process. The more the litigation continues, the more travel and other perks for those officials who are dealing with such cases. Who really bothers about prudency? In our country cases take decades to come for hearing. Economic offenders or white collar crime cases does not get priority hearing. By the time they come up for hearing, everything has changed, people moved out and delinquents get away with minor or no punishment.
How can government recapitalize banks with tax payer’s money for the incompetence and corruption of bank officials? This suits everyone to plunder the tax payers money. Take another example of government largesse is make good of Air India losses to the tune of Rs.50, 000 crores. How they allow state enterprises to incur losses to such an extent? What happened oversight mechanism of Civil Aviation ministry. No answers! Does farm loan waivers really help small and marginal farmers? No, the benefits are cornered by big farmers. Instead of quick fixes, has the government made an effort to study the real reasons for agriculture distress? Have they got any idea whether structural, marketing, weather Gods or policies of government responsible? Why can’t government instead of doing firefighting and populist waivers work on permanent solutions? We all know that much riparian waters flow into sea despite squabbling by states. Have we made an effort to conserve water and make it available for farmers? Both states and Centre are responsible for this. No point saying the agriculture is state subject.
Imagine what will happen to our country if we spend the money that is used for running incompetent banks, PSUs on education and health care, India would have leapfrogged in rankings of human development index. If we don’t spend money on revamping education and health sectors, we as a country will never realize the demographic dividend. I think as a tax payers we should put pressure on Government to arrest those people responsible for such frauds. We should also make RBI capable and powerful so as to ensure that it will have impactful oversight on banks. Why don’t government privatize all the banks and PSUs? No point putting fresh money in leaking bucket of banking system. Why should government run such incompetent organizations and subsidizing them with tax payers money? Stop this plunder of public money. Let’s not give political colour to such things. Let’s examine the issues from governance view point. I think it is high time we tax payers have to assert our right to manage our money properly. We tax payers have to form active groups and put pressure on politicians and government to revamp the system. Media should shun its partisan coverage and debate the issue and create mass awareness. As a fourth estate, they have responsibility to the people of this country.
Professor at International School of Business & Media
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