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| March 13, 2000 | ||
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From the Editor in Chief | Editorials |
Eyecatchers |
| And
He Blew it India was ready for an audacious budget. Why wasn't yashwant Sinha?
What we have here is a near-total
disregard of the real problems of the economy. A 1 per cent cut on
provident fund interest pay-outs will certainly reduce the staggering
interest burden of government (this year, it will spend at least Rs 26 Run, Don't Walk
The IOA has long complained it does not get the corporate patronage that, say, cricket or golf do. The counter-argument is that the IOA spreads its resources too thin, focusing on everything from archery to kho kho rather than investing in a handful of potential champions. The 2000-2001 Union budget makes all donations to the IOA tax-free. It is the responsibility of the association to fully exploit this exemption. It has to draft time-bound projects for specific events and then offer these for sponsorship. Having been given concessions, sporting officialdom now needs to be accountable. Otherwise, India may well host the 2006 Asian Games -- and face the embarrassment of finishing near the bottom of the medals tally. |
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What
a set-up. For weeks, Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha talked about a
"harsh budget". For months, he dropped hints and made firm
statements about how the Government would knuckle down to the business of
the unfinished agenda for reform. For a change, many people actually took
the Government at its word; were gearing up to bite the bullet even as the
Government urged it had to in order to usher in the "New Economy".
Then came Budget 2000. What a lost opportunity.
out of every Rs 100 it earns on interest) but it amounts to trying to plug
the dam-burst with a thumb. Instead of reducing government departments,
Sinha's budget has recommended, with a touch of unintended irony, the
setting up of a department to recommend how expenditure can be reduced.
While there was a lot of talk about privatisation, the Government has
drastically reduced its time-table as well as projected revenue from the
sale of public-sector equity. There is no attempt to reorganise the
financial sector. There is little attempt to get infrastructure rolling
again. This is a brazen attempt to pass the buck. For every year you delay
true reform, many more are added to the time-table to get India out of its
mess. No economic development is achieved beyond a point by making exports
and the private sector the engines of growth. Meaningful development only
comes by not camouflaging inefficiency under the cloak of a booming stock
market, the info-tech sector and the false promises of a 7 per cent a year
growth in the economy, but by tackling it head-on. Unless Sinha and his
ilk change their weak-willed approach, India Inc might as well pack up and
go home.
Perhaps
the only people genuinely happy at the idea of Delhi hosting the 2006
Asian Games are its building contractors. After all, the 1982 Asian Games
resulted in a frenetic construction boom, gave the city more flyovers
and five-star hotels than anybody can remember and established the builder-politician
nexus as the ruling deity of the Indian capital. It also resulted in stadia
that were supposed to foster a new sporting culture in this country. If
hosting wedding ceremonies and rock music concerts be the manifestations
of this "sporting culture", then the 1982 experiment must be
hailed as a success. There is, of course, no guarantee that Delhi's last
minute application will win the day. What is more likely is that, Asian
Games or no Asian Games, Indian sport will continue to limp from one failure
to another. The Indian Olympic Association (IOA) has developed a penchant
for extravaganza, without paying attention to infrastructure. The precedent
of the cash-rich but talent-scarce Indian cricket board is there for all
to rue.