Bureaucratic touch

(Conversation between 2 friends who accidentally meet at a mall in Gandhinagar…)

Satish: Hello(stressed) Shankar! What a pleasant surprise. Long time man!

Shankar: Hey Satish! Hows Veena and Kids?

Satish: Ther’ good! Hows Shalini, 6^th month right?

Shankar: No no 3^rd What! She’s going well, almonds cashews, keeping her healthy (grins). Reckon you were (a) deterrent shopper, how come in this mall, in Gandhinagar? 

Satish: Had a short meeting here at the Secretariat today. The’re increasing our upper caps on mobile phones to 20k. I’m planning for iPhone 5.

Shankar: Excellent! Must be quite a feeling in switching from Nokia to Apple?

Satish: Not exactly, I’m buying it to Veena. It is hard these days you see. But then bureaucratic perks do bail you out in times of demanding wives! (Chuckles)

Shankar: That’s true brother. The other day I was going through an article by a DA-IICTian. This guy was expressing concerns over the urgent requirement of FDI in Defense  It will protect the Government from excessive weapon and ammunition imports, which preserves an extremely heavy stake in widening the Current Account Deficit. Moreover FDI in defense would provide scope in exporting defense machineries to other nations, introduce better modern technology in native hands and generate employment for our engineered youth. 

Satish: Correct brother. A narrowing CAD can control this currency devaluation. Besides it will also trigger improved infrastructure as a platform for indigenous production. By the way the Government should urgently consider investing in the labor sector infrastructure.

Shankar: Huh! Sir?

Satish: The wages have recently leveled up in China, which remains a hub of labor intensive market in Asia. This will attract more cheap-labor hungry MNCs to Asia. This is a golden opportunity for Indian Government to woo these MNCs as their investment will surely bring in Dollar inflows!

Shankar: And Dollar inflows would help strengthening the Rupee, isn’t it? But the Government still needs to formulate stringent labor laws and an improved infrastructure.

Satish: Mor’an that, they need to ease up on their haywire policies. Unrequired taxes and caps on foreign investments in SEZs (Special Economic Zones) have been a cause of concern for interested foreign players ever since. Seems when the nation opened itself up back in 1990s, ‘twas more of paperwork than reality. The infant industry argument is outlawed and until the government allows foreign competition the native manufacturers will not even frown leave aside improve.

Shankar: You’re true on the haywire part bro. They grant permission of international operations only after 6 six years of domestic service in civil aviation. Isn’t this more of a corporate decision than a public ordinance! We cannot grow and mature with a sense of insecurity.

Satish: The SEZs demand an urgent attention in getting improved energy sector infrastructure, better Governmental and public support. The energy sector seriously needs reforms!

Shankar: Reforms! Did you hear of their noble intentions of doubling the gas prices by April ’14? This will be catastrophic in the sense that gas runs two crucial sectors in this nation. The Energy sector and The Fertilizer industry. Fuelling up gas prices will either leave the gas-run power plants dormant (a huge waste of Government investment) or it will in the most classical way shoot up the electricity prices, the Apollo 11 way. Further Fertilizer industry runs heavily on gas supplies. A gas price increase will shoot the fertilizer and hence harvest prices. We cannot overlook the huge governmental subsidy in food sector, which will simply catalyst the huge financial burden on citizens. In brief costly electricity and costly Potatoes.

Satish: As per the latest  press communique released from the Ministry of Oil and Natural gas, fiscal year 2012- ’13 statistics clearly show a skewed utilization of the newly discovered natural gas fields in Rajasthan. A mere 48% of the planned utilization! If the Government is unsure of itself, they should probably auction (planned and literal) some stake to a worthy foreign player. Make laws about exports caps and duties and fixed domestic deliveries. Would help wonders in bringing foreign capital, effective utilization and improved infrastructure.

Shankar: True brother, instead Sharma and Chidambaram are busy with American State and commerce Secretaries. They must be more concerned about immediate reforms not protracted hopes. After all the elections are coming, they need to keep up their manifesto promises.

Satish: That they don’t realize brother! The useless Food Security Bill isn’t the only promise, they made in their manifesto. But it sure is the easiest to pursue at the given time. Food Corp. India is the most corrupt body of this country with so many leakages that the government should request the owners of M-Seal to assist the PDS (Public Distribution System). Increasing the pressure on the mouth of a supply line with 108 leakages will only flood the leaking areas. The real wisdom lies in sealing the leakages. They had promised to use Aadhaar cards as subsidiary ration cards and carve out a cashless PDS system to remove local level corruption. They had promised dynamic GDP growth rate, employment rate. They had promised a tamed inflation as well in their manifesto. But it seems…

Shankar: Calm down brother. On the sunny part, the judiciary is at least kicking out criminal and tainted politicians from the parliament, on the call of reforming the Representation of People’s Act (article 6 and 4). This means the new Government’s session will acquaint many new faces.

Satish: Yeah! Let’s see. By the way I forgot to ask, Wha’ch ya doin’ here in mall? You’re not a shopping geek either?

Shankar: (Phone rings!!) *Trin *Trin….Excuse me. Hello Darling!

Shalini: Why’re ya taking so long!! This queue’s crushing my belly! Asked you to bring the cash not the entire ATM! Now don’t tell me you met some of your officer friend and started discussing the pathetic state of legislature!!

Shankar: No Hon! How can ya even! Anyways get outta’ the queue, we’re going to buy Apple (riot on other side)… I mean the iPhone Darl’. Ok just coming…Bye.

Satish: You too?

Shankar: Guess bureaucratic perks don’t partial on provincial basis (Chuckles)…!

The author is a civil service aspirant, who loves to roams around the myriad hues surrounding the nation and its citizens today. 

The links are provided for further reading

All expressed views are personal.

-Yognik Baghel