Source: http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/sainath/article3439624.ece
Pranab Mukherjee's stirring call for austerity tugs at the national tear
ducts. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has pleaded for it in the past and
watched his flock embrace it creatively. With the Finance Ministry even
acting on Dr. Singh's call in 2009 (economy class air travel, spending
cuts), we are now in the fourth year of our noble quest.
There are, of course, several kinds of austerity. My pick would be the
variety practised by Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh
Ahluwalia. No one can challenge Dr. Ahluwalia's commitment to austerity.
Look at the way he's stood up to the populist demand for a poverty line
that makes sense. No pampering people here. Spend Rs. 29 a day in urban
India or Rs. 23 in rural India and you are not poor. He's even asked
the Supreme Court to uphold the imposition of such rigour on hundreds of
millions of his fellow citizens. One affidavit filed by the Planning
Commission defended a line of Rs. 32 (urban) and Rs. 26 (rural) a day.
Since then, the Padma Vibhushan awardee and some of his colleagues have
stuck their necks out to lower that further.
RTI queries
That Dr. Ahluwalia practises austerity himself is evident from two RTI
queries. Both fine examples of RTI-based journalism, but failing to get
the attention they deserved. Both exploring the anatomy of his
austerity. One was a story in India Today (covering Dr. Ahluwalia's foreign trips between June 2004 and January 2011) by Shyamlal Yadav. This journalist (now with The Indian Express), has done outstanding RTI-based stories in the past as well.
The other, in February this year, came from The Statesman News Service
(reporter unnamed). This one took out details on Dr. Ahluwalia's global
forays between May and October 2011. In that period, he undertook “four
trips covering 18 nights [which] cost the exchequer a sum of Rs.
36,40,140, an average cost of Rs 2.02 lakh a day,” says the SNS report.
At the time this happened, that Rs. 2.02 lakh would have been worth
$4,000 a day. (Gee! Lucky for us Montek was into austerity. Imagine what
his expenditure might have been otherwise). That is a daily spend
almost 9,000 times greater than the 45 cents cut-off point at which
rural Indians would be doing okay, in his view. Or over 7,000 times
greater than the 55 cents cut-off point for urban Indians that Dr.
Ahluwalia would find “normatively adequate.”
Now his spend of Rs. 3.6 million (or $72,000) in 18 days might well have
been his personal stimulus to global tourism in that year. After all,
the industry in 2010 was still recovering from the ravages of 2008-09,
as the United Nations World Tourism Organisation points out. The U.N.
agency found, on the other hand, that 2011 saw global travel revenues
cross $1 trillion. The largest revenue increases were seen in the U.S.
and Europe (where most of those 18 days were spent). The Indian public
can rejoice over its money playing a humble part in that recovery even
while scorched by austerity at home.
The stats from the Shyamlal Yadav's RTI are fascinating. To begin with,
his findings show Dr. Ahluwalia made 42 official foreign trips and spent
274 days overseas during a seven-year tenure. That is “one in every
nine days” abroad. And that's excluding travel days. The India Today
story found that his excursions cost the exchequer Rs.2.34 crore.
However, it points out that they received three different estimates of
the costs of his trips and charitably went with the lowest. Also, said
the India Today story, “it is not clear whether the figures include the
expenses incurred by Indian embassies abroad on frills such as hiring
limousines. The actual costs could be a lot higher.”
Since the post he holds does not require so much foreign travel — all of
it done, though, with “the permission of the Prime Minister” — this is
puzzling. That 23 of the 42 trips were to the U.S., which does not
believe in planning (but then, perhaps, neither does Dr. Ahluwalia), is
even more puzzling. What were these trips about? Spreading global
awareness on austerity? If so, we'll have to spend more on his travel:
look at those revolting Greeks killing the Cause on the streets of
Athens. And even more on his trips to the U.S. where the austerity of
the affluent is striking. CEOs in that country took home billions in
bonuses even in 2008, the year Wall Street tanked the global economy.
This year, even the media journals of the super-rich in the U.S. write
about CEOs destroying their companies, jobs and more — and gaining
personally from it. Millions of Americans, including many who suffered
home mortgage foreclosures, saw a different kind of austerity. The kind
the French increasingly fear and have voted against.
When Dr. Singh pleaded for austerity in 2009, his Cabinet rose
handsomely to the call. Each member added a modest million rupees a
month thereafter, on average, to his or her assets over the next 27
months. All the while, hard at work as Ministers. (
“The Union Cabinet gets healthier,” The Hindu,
September 21, 2011). Praful Patel excelled, adding on average,
half-a-million rupees to his assets every 24 hours in that period.
Workers in Air India, under a Ministry he headed much of that time,
struggled to get their salaries for weeks on end. Now with Pranab
cracking the whip, there'll be even more austerity going around.
Note the bipartisan spirit of this austerity: in the past few years,
Praful Patel (UPA-NCP) and Nitin Gadkari (NDA-BJP) have hosted two of
the costliest weddings ever, with far more guests than seen at any IPL
final. Gender-balanced Spartanism, too. That was for Mr. Patel's
daughter and Mr. Gadkari's son.
Their corporate counterparts take it further. Mukesh Ambani with his
27-floor (but higher than 50 storeys) costliest residence in living
memory. And Vijay Mallya — whose employees in Kingfisher struggle for
their salaries — who tweeted on May 5: “Having dinner at Atmosphere on
the 123rd floor of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. Never been so high up in
my life. Awesome view.” That's probably higher than Kingfisher is flying
right now. Both own teams in the IPL. Which body has received public
subsidies (by way of entertainment tax waivers, for example). That is,
until the matter went to the Bombay High Court. There are other
public-funded austerities linked to the IPL — watch this space.
Wall Street model
The corporate world here generally follows the austerity model of Wall
Street. There, nine banks including Citigroup and Merrill Lynch “paid
$32.6 billion in bonuses in 2008, while receiving $175 billion in
taxpayers funds,” reported Bloomberg in 2009. It quoted New York
Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's report on the subject: “When the banks
did well, their employees were paid well. When the banks did poorly,
their employees were paid well. When the banks did very poorly, they
were bailed out by taxpayers and their employees were still paid well.
Bonuses and overall compensation did not vary significantly as profits
diminished.”
Note that Pranab's austerity prayer last week saw the soothsayers of the
super-rich raging on TV that the deficit was all due to “one populist
measure after another.” That is, stupid things like trying to give
people work, reduce hunger or send children to school. No mention of the
Plutocrat Populism which saw about Rs. 5 lakh crore (roughly $100
billion at the time) being gifted mostly to the rich and the corporate
classes by the same Pranab budget in concessions on Corporate Tax,
Excise and Customs Duties. (See
“To fix BPL, nix CPL,” The Hindu,
March 26, 2012). Sitaram Yechury pointed out in Parliament that these
write-offs for the super-rich exceeded the fiscal deficit by Rs. 8,000
crore. But it is the ‘populist measures' aimed at the poor that get
panned.
Amartya Sen (
The Hindu, Jan. 7, 2012)
ruefully asks “why there is hardly any media discussion about other
revenue-involving problems, such as the exemption of diamond and gold
from customs duty, which, according to the Ministry of Finance, involves
a loss of a much larger amount of revenue (Rs.50,000 crore per year)
than the additional cost involved in the Food Security Bill (Rs.27,000
crore).”
Indians outside the charmed circle of the meritorious know a different
austerity. Food inflation in double digits. Vegetable prices rising 60
per cent in a year. Child malnourishment double that of sub-Saharan
Africa. Families cutting back sharply on milk and essentials. Massive
increases in health costs bankrupting millions. Farmers unable to afford
inputs or access credit. A drinking water scarcity for many, as more
and more of that life-giving substance gets diverted for other purposes.
How much nicer to practise the austerity of the elite.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
'Foreign travel is expensive but necessary for the discharge of official duties'
source: http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/article3449609.ece
Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, responds to P. Sainath:
The article
“The austerity of the affluent”
(The Hindu, May 21, 2012), is so misleadingly distortive on two points
that I feel compelled to clarify the position. I have high regard for
your newspaper, and subscribe to the notion that there should be full
transparency in government. It is in this spirit that I hope these
clarifications will be published by you, for the benefit of your
readers.
The first error is comparing the daily cost of foreign trips undertaken
by me with the Tendulkar poverty line, which incidentally is not on a
daily basis, but on a monthly budget basis for a household. This
comparison is intended to suggest gross extravagance. Air travel and
hotels in major capitals are very expensive, and the class of air travel
and the class of hotels are not determined by me, but by government
rules applicable to all Ministers, Members of Parliament and senior
officials. There is no denying that foreign travel is expensive, but it
is often necessary for the discharge of official duties. I should add
that each day spent abroad is filled with 14 hours of meetings, and is a
day spent away from family and not exactly a holiday. We should, of
course, attempt to reduce costs, but we need to consider whether and to
what extent this would affect our ability to enter into negotiations
immediately on arrival, or have delegation meetings in the hotel room.
One needs to carefully weigh the costs and benefits before taking a
considered decision, and in any event, this is a decision that would
need to be taken by the appropriate authorities.
The second error in the article is to suggest that the frequency of my
travels is unnecessary, as the functions of the Deputy Chairman do not
require such foreign travel. I agree that the role of Deputy Chairman
itself does not, per se, require extensive foreign travel. But the
article omits to note that most of the foreign trips made by me were in
the capacity of sherpa for the G-20, or as member of the Prime
Minister's delegation. I am the co-chair of the Indo-U.S. Energy
dialogue and the co-chair of the India-China economic dialogue. These
are special assignments and not part of my duties as Deputy Chairman.
The decision on who should undertake these tasks is not taken by me, but
when chosen to perform these tasks, I consider it an honour, and do the
best I can. As in the case of all persons of cabinet rank, each trip is
cleared by the Ministry of External Affairs and the Prime Minister's
Office.
I should add that G-20 meetings were especially frequent between 2008
and 2010, because of the global financial crisis. In fact, each summit
was preceded by two or three preparatory meetings of sherpas. One could,
of course, argue that India should not have been represented at these
meetings. That would certainly have saved some money, but the question
to ask is whether the country would be better served by not being
represented. Finally, in the interest of full transparency on foreign
travels I have decided to put all my foreign trips on the website of the
Planning Commission so that all those interested can find out where I
am going and why.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
P. Sainath replies... to Montek
source: http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/article3449607.ece
Dr. Ahluwalia does not contradict a single fact in the
article:
(i) Rs.2.02 lakh daily average expenditure for trips between May and
October 2011 (well after his “busy” G-20 period ending in 2010). No
“gross extravagance”?
(ii) 274 days abroad, or one in every nine. Factor in travel days and it could be one in seven away from office.
(iii) 42 trips, half of them visits to the U.S. (several trips not
connected with his duties as Deputy Chairman of the Planning
Commission).
The link between the poverty line figures he supports (and defends in
the Supreme Court) and his own expenditures is extremely relevant and
pertinent. It is hypocrisy to impose one approach on an impoverished
people while practising another — entirely different — for himself, with
their money — public money. That too in a period where his government
calls for more austerity. Dealing with abject poverty was central to the
founding principles of the Planning Commission. But that, unlike Dr.
Ahluwalia, is hobbled by “resource constraints.”
The travel period he cites as vital (2008-10) was one in which Dr.
Manmohan Singh had ordered that government “severely curtail expenditure
on air travel, particularly foreign travel,” except where deemed
“absolutely necessary” (The Hindu, June 6, 2008).
Several ministers' foreign trips were cancelled and cuts announced in
travel expenses. Two ministers lost their five-star hotel suites. The
External Affairs Minister gave up his plane for overseas trips, and
others flew economy class (The Hindu, September 13, 2009). Dr. Ahluwalia is silent on what class he actually travelled by, then or thereafter, or his expenses.
How much travel does he undertake within India — surely a priority for a
Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission? Put that up on the website?
Costs of $4,000 (daily average) are huge. And we don't know what the
embassies and consulates spent on him locally. But spending curbs worry
Dr. Ahluwalia, who asks “whether and to what extent this would affect
our ability to enter into negotiations immediately on arrival…” Hope he
spares a thought for how millions of Indian travellers, like migrant
labourers, journey, and have to be productive on arrival. He plans for
them, after all. G-20 meetings in 2008-10 were held in different
countries, but his visits mostly took him to the U.S. His U.S. visits
were prolific earlier, too, as the RTI data show.
Given the importance he claims for his sherpa work in G-20 and other
forums, which he admits is unconnected to the Planning Commission, why
remain in the Commission and paralyse its functioning by being absent so
often? The first day of the 11th Plan was April 1, 2007. But the Plan
document was ready only on June 25, 2008 — an entire year wasted that
brought cascading disaster for many vital projects. The “mid-term”
appraisal came in the fourth year of that Five-Year Plan! Now, we're
into the first year of the 12th Plan and it is not even remotely ready.
It is good to know the Planning Commission's website will carry his
travel details. But the RTI data was also about his expenses. Will he
put those up, too? Better still, if other PC members' expenses go up as
well, to allow us comparisons.
It is a measure of how disconnected Dr. Ahluwalia is that he does not
sense how the public views his expenditures. Nor, worse, the further
damage his clarification will do to their perceptions.
sainath@thehindu.co.in
