Plenty of cream for India's fat government By Raja M
MUMBAI - Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, faced with inflation at a 45-month high
and a pummeling of the ruling United Progressive Alliance government by
opposition parties, has urged his ministerial colleagues to slash costs by
cutting out conferences in five-star hotels, foreign trips, advertisements
(usually boasting governmental "achievements") and overtime allowances.
The prime ministerial order for belt tightening came after the government
raised petrol and diesel prices by 10% on June 4, adding to inflation already
soaring over 8%. The fuel-price increase was so politically sensitive that the
prime minister had to justify
the rise to the nation on live TV.
Terming the follow-up ministerial cost-cutting drive as a "moral duty",
Manmohan pointed to the "the huge burden imposed on our financial resources due
to the continuous rising trend in global oil prices and our dependence on
import of crude".
He urged colleagues" "I am, therefore, writing to ask you to severely curtail
expenditure on air travel, particularly foreign travel, except in cases where
it is deemed to be absolutely necessary."
Frequent "official" trips abroad are a big drain on public money. Ministers,
bureaucrats and elected representatives fly business or first class on such
journeys (usually "study" tours) and run up average daily expenses of over
US$1,000, staying in luxury hotels and having their shopping bills picked up by
the local Indian embassy.
Following the prime ministerial cost-cutting shout, cabinet ministers cancelled
foreign trips for reasons that pointed to the kind of wastage. Finance minister
Palaniappan Chidambaram was to head to the US for a Stanford University
seminar. Tourism minister Ambika Soni scrapped a visit to San Francisco and Los
Angeles to attend a dance festival and a function of the American Association
of Physicians of Indian Origin.
Manmohan's austerity call, dismissed by cynics as too little too late, is
expected to save the federal government $110 million in non-budgeted
expenditure, a fraction of the wasteful spending it runs up every year.
''Petrol hike or no hike, there should not be any wasteful expenditure," said
Tapan Sen, a member of parliament belonging to the Communist Party of India
(Marxist), a governmental ally. "This just sends out the impression that if oil
was not so high, then all this would be allowed.'
India's central government costs spin on a continuous upward spiral. Total
expenditure of ministries and related departments climbed to $175 billion in
fiscal 2008-09 from $166 billion a year earlier and $136 billion in 2006-07,
according to the Ministry of Finance. Net central government tax revenue rose
23% to $375 billion in 2007-08 compared with a year earlier.
Total expenditure for the first half of 2007-08 rose to $74.45 billion,
compared to $59 billion during the corresponding period in 2006-07, "signaling
a relatively higher pace of expenditure, as in preceding years," a finance
ministry report observed.
Taxpayers feed bloated federal and state governmental cabinets, with
ministerial berths generally handed out as sops to enlist coalition partners.
Manmohan runs a fat ship, with 104 ministries and related departments,
including 50 cabinet ministries with curious super-specialties such as Ministry
of Statistics and Programme Implementation and Ministry of Food Processing
Industries. In contrast, the United States has a 15-member cabinet to run a
superpower.
In 2005-06, India's federal council of ministers ran up a non-planned
expenditure bill of $45 million, including security and administrative
expenses, tour expenses ($11 million), Prime Minister's Office ($3.8 million)
and security from the Special Protection Group of commandos ($24.3 million).
The ministerial tab for 2008-09 is $50 million. Non-plan expenditure, according
to the governmental definition, is a generic term to cover governmental
expenditure not included in "plan" or the annual budget.
The non-plan expenditure of the President, Parliament, Union Public Service
Commission and the secretariat of the Vice-President surged 149% to $46 million
in the nine months to September 2007 from the corresponding period in 2006.
Taxpayers seemed unimpressed with the prime minister's austerity act following
the fuel price increase. "I have often seen bureaucrats traveling in Sonatas,
Camrys, Skodas. Isn't this a gross waste of tax-payers' money?" Pravav Sharma
demanded in a letter to the daily Indian Express on June 5.
Luxury cars are favorites in government circles. On January 9, the Department
of Expenditure in the Finance Ministry circulated an office memorandum
including a Ford model in an expanded list of approved air-conditioned cars
that can be purchased as staff vehicles. "It is reiterated that the approved
models of AC category of staff cars can be used only by the Ministers and
officers of the level of the Secretary to the Government of India and above,"
the memo said.
Abuse of official cars and other property is rampant, and does not escape
notice. "You go to any prestigious private school in Delhi and you will find
tens of government cars waiting to pick up kids of bureaucrats and
politicians," said Kuldip Sharma, another indignant newspaper letter writer.
"You go to any market you will see tens of cars with wives of these people
shopping in official cars. Just stop this misuse of official cars and see the
huge amount of oil that is saved."
"Thirty-three percent of total cars on road are government property and they
are running on petrol paid by income-tax payers," bristled Sharmila Jain,
another member of Club Public Outrage. "Government servants enjoy cost-free
rides in cars at people's expense."
Increasing the misuse of cars and wasted fuel are the security details assigned
to politicians who use their entourage as status symbols. The highest Z+
category entails a security cover of 36 personnel, the Z category 22 personnel,
the Y category has 11 body guards and the X category two. The cost of security
is conservatively estimated at more than $23.4 million each year.
The misuse of security status symbols continues among state governments, with
one of the worst offenders being former Tamil Nadu chief minister and present
opposition leader Jayalalitha Jayaram, who has been seen travelling in convoys
of over a hundred cars (with public traffic being held up en route as her royal
highness passes by).
Jayalalitha, a former movie star, is, albeit unmarried, India's version of
Imelda Marcos and has much in common with the former Philippines first lady,
including a regal lifestyle at public expense, serious corruption charges and a
fetish for shoes. A police raid on Jayalalitha's residence after her party lost
an election produced 750 pairs of shoes, along with 500 wine goblets,10,500
saris, 700 gold bangles and other gold objects weighing 28 kilograms, 800 kg of
silver, 91 watches, 19 cars and a mini-cinema.
India's tolerance level with corruption is so unfortunately high that
Jayalalitha was elected back to power, lost it again in 2006, but could find
herself back as chief minister, helping her no doubt to add to her shoe and
jewellery collection.
Prime minister Manmohan Singh has yet to make any reference to thousands of
politicians living in grand government-owned property, often beyond their
elected tenure. Veteran columnist Tavleen Singh suggested members of parliament
(numbering 780) be dumped together in hostels.
"They have no business to be living in huge flats and houses at our expense,"
she wrote," especially since the vast majority of the people they represent
live in single-room tenements."
Singh suggested ministers could be housed in the sprawling Rashtrapati Bhavan,
India's presidential palace, and save hundreds of millions of dollars in
residential and security costs.
The 340-room Rashtrapati Bhavan, once the British viceroy's residence and now
the home of the democracy's president, is symbolic of India's showy and
wasteful governmental luxury. In a country where a majority of the population
earn less than $1each day, and where the capital suffers from power cuts, the
Rashtrapati Bhavan electricity bills for the past five years have totaled $3.7
million, according to information accessed by Mumbai resident Chetan Kothari on
March 26 through the Right to Information (RTI) Act.
The palace, which comes complete with a presidential cavalry bodyguard, is used
for hosting state banquets, such as when US President George W Bush visited
India in 2006 and was served a banquet of 14 dishes.
The Bush tuck-in compared favorably with the feast Queen Elizabeth provided him
at Buckingham Palace in 2003, when Bush was served consomme, halibut dressed
with herbs, chicken flavored with basil and served with savoy cabbage, roast
potatoes and salad, followed by vanilla praline and coffee ice cream.
Bush, a fellow guest revealed, was however so confused with the royal table
etiquette (such as putting down the fork when the Queen is speaking) that he
managed in the entire meal to eat only a spoonful of ice cream, ordering
sandwiches to fill the gap as soon as he returned to his room. Such a plain
vanilla presidential lifestyle is probably more suited to impoverished India
than one of multi-course state banquets with peaches and strawberry cream.
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