Thursday, September 24, 2009

Day 131

Well in my last blog I wrote about the corruption. I know that I'll not get any comments from your side. And I doubt that how many of you are ready to change the system. Well, never mind. This time, I'm not having sad feelings for not getting comments as feedbacks. Today, I'm going to write about a scheme been implemented by the Central Government. It's about to uplift the economic condition of those families who are living below the poverty line. Well, I'm talking about National Rural Employment Gurantee Scheme (NREGS). It's a scheme to eradicate poverty from India. A nice move by the Central Government. Well, let's see the every aspect of this scheme. This scheme is implemented to take care of the people, who are under priviledged. But the economic growth of India is going in the tremendous way. Well, if we go by the government figures, then there were 46 per cent of the total population was living below poverty line in 1983. Indeed a very bad figure even after 36 years of independence. Well, the percentage of the people living under poverty line went down to 28 per cent in 2004-05. Personally, I don't consider this figure encouraging. In my personal view, this should be below 5 per cent or even less than that. Hope so, we will achieve that. I think that this was the thought in the minds of the planners while drafting NREGS.
But there are many drawbacks in this plan. On the surface, it looks like a nice scheme where the government is really taking pains for the upliftment of the poor. Under this scheme, 100 days of employment is been guranteed at the wage of Rs 100 per day. This scheme is to benefit those who are unemployed for the major part of the year. Taking one adult from each household in the village, this scheme is engaging them in construction work. Till now 2.6 crore households has been registered in this scheme. But not so much surprisingly only 53 lakh household received the full payment of 100 working days at the rate of Rs 100 per day. I mean to say that only 53 lakh household out of 2.6 crore households have received the full payment of Rs 10,000. What about other people? Where is their money? Then I found that there is no direct transfer of money from the Central Government to the bank account of the labourer who has worked. There are five layers between the Central Government and the labourer though which the money flows. Those five layers are: Central Employment Gurantee Council at Centre, then State Employment Gurantee Council in every State, then District Panchayat at District level, then there is an Intermediate Panchayat at the block level followed by the Gram Panchayat at the village to which the labourer belongs to. Indeed a very long chain of people in between and hence the long chain for money to change hands. Isn't it?
Now lets have a look to the construction work been done. Several ponds were constructed in those areas which have scarcity of rain. What a great planning? Instead of digging wells to solve the water problem, ponds are been constructed. Then the roads were constructed to connect villages or the remote areas to the rest of the country. Nice planning. But the quality of the construction of those roads is so bad that it will be washed away in the first rain itself. Again a nice planning. I find this to be simple wastage of time, money and the human labour. Is there anyone in the Union Cabinet who can rectify these drawbacks? Is Union Finance Minister looking at this? This is simply misutilization of the public money. I remeber that he recommended the Union Council Ministers to travel by economy class in all the airlines to save the public money. Is the misutilization of public money in schemes like NREGS valid? Won't he do anything to stop this? I'm not against the schemes like NREGS. But I advocate for some positive type of construction and proper utilization of public money. I hope that the Planning Commission will look after the drawbacks of NREGS and will sort it out soon before it turns into a fiasco.

Monday, September 21, 2009

Day 130

For the last few days, I wanted to write about something. Actually, I'm reffering to the TV commercial of TATA Tea. Kudos to the people who were behind the conceptualisation and production of that commercial. The new commercial points towards the corruption of government officials and the politicians. And it's true that we, the common people, who are giving bribes to the government officials to get our work done. So, we are the source of the corruption. And ironically, it's we, the common people, who cries that the government officials are corrupt. If we blame the officials then we are also eqaully respnosible. And now the situation is completely out of our hands. Every government officer thinks that it's his birth right to have bribe. Without bribe he can't work. They have created such a scenario that for every small work they need to get their hands greased. And it's not only money. It can be some gift or some other favour for their personal use. I consider them to be an educated beggars. Yes, beggars, who begs for the money everytime a person goes to him for some work. Now we have to change this system. We have to change the system of giving bribe to the government officers. If we pledge that we will not give any bribe then only this disease is going to be cured. I know that you people will think that I'm talkin something abstract. But it can be implemented. Why do we hesitate in refusing to give bribe to the government officials? Just because of the fear that our work will not be done. Corruption is like cancer which is affecting us also. We have to stop it. And why should we give bribe to those people who are drawing good and comfortable salaries from the government. There is no use of giving bribe. We really have to change this system. Instead of giving bribes to the well off people working in the government departments, we can give donations to some charitable tust or any social welfare organisations. We will be helping someone more poor or someone really needs our help. Giving donations to the charitable trust will attract some rebate to us while giving the income tax. So is it not better to help someone who really deserves your help than giving bribe to someone who is well capable of taking care of his family? So stop giving bribe. Let's change this system and really make our country a developed nation.

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Day 129

Today the nine day long puja of Goddess Durga begins. I would like to wish all my readers HAPPY NAVRATRI. Every year, Navratri energies me a lot. I'm talking about my personal feelings. In these nine days, we worship nine different forms of Goddess Durga. All the different forms of Goddess Durga is related to one form or another form of energy, wealth, prosperity and knowledge. We worship Goddess Durga to have her blessings for the things which we desire. But in the changing time, we have to think about the changing aspect of the society also. Still in modern age, there are few places in India where female child is been killed. It's ver sad to know those things. There are few states in our country where this inhuman practise is been done. Now its time to change those thoughts. It's necessary now because it's a woman, who gives birth to a new life from her. Without her there will be no life in this world. And we are killing the creator of the world when it's in the mother's womb only. This is really shameful for us. At one hand, we are worshipping a woman to give us strength and prosperity and on the other hand we are killing female infants. These things should be stopped. We can't expect government do all the things and we sit ideally. We also have some duties and responsibilities. We can't run away from them. It's very easy to point out the shortcomings of others but it's very tough to point the fingers towards our self. So we need to change ourselves and to change the society. Now its turn to get ready to fight the social evils. Even Goddess Durga fought the evils and saved the world and gave us a message that we should also fight the evils which are harmful and dangerous for our society. Then only we will be able to say proudly that we are following the path shown to us by Goddess Durga. May Goddess Durga bless the entire world with prosperity, love and peace.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Day 128

In my last post, I wrote about the worry of the Union Finance Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, to curb the expenses of ministers. I think he is not only worried about the expenses of the ministers only but also with the expenses of all departments. This is a nice and appreciable effort been initiated by him. Kudos to him. Even Mrs Sonia Gandhi is travelling by the economy class in the airlines. But as I wrote in my last post, the need to give more emphasis to curb the misuse of the government resources and funds by the government employees. There are many public sector companies where is the misuse is been done because they are not ready to chang according the changing time. There are many companies which affect our daily life like BSNL, Indian Oil etc. These are the profit making units of the central government. But are they making profit in real? Well, let's take example of BSNL. Previously it was under the Department of Post and Telecommunication. But later on it was reformed and was named Bharat Sanchar Nigal Limited. But still today, BSNL is not ready to change itself according to the changing time. And this is due to the officers sitting at top managerial positions. They are on the verge of retirement but still they want to enjoy all the privileges to the full extent. When the BSNL was formed, all the telephone exchanges and telegraph offices were merged together. Now in this technological era, no one goes to the telegraph office to send messages to their near and dear ones, when they have mobiles in their hands. But still BSNL is paying the salaries to the staff who are there in the telegraph section. What is the need of giving salaries to the employees when their resource is not been utilised at all? The pays and pensions giving to the employees of the telegraph section are definitily costing crores of ruppes to the exchequer. But who cares? No one is bothered to utilise such a big work force in some action. The government wants to give them salary and pension but don't want to utilise their human resources. Mr Mukherjee should look into this aspect also. He should think about what to do when the money of the taxpayers is been misutlise like this. And there are many more to come in the coming days from my side. So, please keep reading and commenting on my blog.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Day 127

Recently, I read a news article in which the Finance Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, told Foreign Minister, Mr S M Krishna and his deputy Mr Shashi Tharoor, to vacant the suites of five star hotels to move to their places. Foreign Minister and his deputy told Finance Minister that they are paying the bills of their respective hotels from their private pocket. This indicates two things. First, the Finance Minister is worried about the extra expenditure of the exchequer. Second thing is that Foreign Minister and his deputy are not misusing the taxpayer's money for their personal use. I would like to say that if Finance Minister is really worried about the extra expenses then steps should be done to curb the expenditure of the bureaucrates. They are misusing the public funds. It's the bureaucrat class which is responsible for the extra expenses. The bureaucrat class is always misusing the government properties for their personal uses. Recently, Mr Mukherjee took an economy class to fly from New Delhi to Kolkata. He is entitled to a charted plane to fly at the expense of government exchequer. But still he took economy class flight to travel. He is setting nice examples. But I really wonder that how many bureaucrats are going to take lessons from this example. Hardly ten percent of the total bureaucrats in the whole country. Or even less than that. Bureaucrats think that they are not accountable for their actions. Or in the worst case, they think that they deserve all the things which they are getting. I think strong measures should be taken to make them accountable for using public funds. It needs strong laws and strong will power of the ministers to execute them to curb the menance of these bureaucrats. So instead of making plans on paper or saying it verbally, stress should be given to the execution of the plan. The Finance Minister should ask for monthly expenditures from every department especially from the bureaucrats. Then only the extra expenses will be curbed and then the money will be utilise for the public welfare. Whenever funds are allotted for some public welfare, then around three fourth of those funds goes in to the pockets of these bureaucrats. Finance Minister should stop these things. Then only the public participation will increase in the construction of the whole society. Because of the corrupt practices of the bureaucrat class, people blame the government for not implementing or not doing any development work. Many times the needy is deprived for getting the things which are really meant for them.

Sunday, September 6, 2009

Day 126

There is an issue which is disturbing me a lot. I'm talking about the decision taken by Mr Kapil Sibal about the grading system. Few days back, I have already written about it. Well, I'm not convinced with the decision. Mr Sibal gave the theory that grading system will take the tension from students. It will make them free from exam fever or exam phobia. I want to remind him that students are not scared of the exams. There is a phsiological fear of not doing well in the competition. The excess pressure given the parents to do well in exam, to obtain from the student living next door are the main reasons of the exam phobia. This grading system is going to hamper the education system. In the percentage system, topper is determined by the exact numbers. Let us take an example. Suppose a student gets 96.87% and another student gets 97% the obviously the student having 97% is the topper. But in the proposed grading system both the students will get A1 grade. Now can Mr Sibal tell that who amongst the 10 students who got A1 grade is the highest scorer? No, he can't. No body can. Because the numerical parameter is gone. It's hard to know the highest scorer. The whole grading system is the generalise form of the result. It's not accurate like the percentage system. In my view, this grading system is barring student of knowing the exact result of his or her effort put in. So, I strongly oppose the grading system and I favour the percentage system which is currently used.

Day 496

  JAI SHRI RAM   Actually, I thought to write this post on 22 nd January itself, but I was busy whole day in watching the live broadcas...