THE CORE IS EMPTY, THEREFORE NOISY

Yesterday you read about break up of Rs. twenty lakh crores that indeed break up hearts of all empathic Indians who care to delve at least beneath the surface.

When Modi mentioned specific sections of the working poor in his speech, the street vendors, domestic workers, and others; they were very happy as Messiah has etched on stone the oracle and the elixir to their woes in life.   

But what did they get? Empty can and empty promises.

Do not worry about them- they are used to it year after year & they still commit the same mistake again. And again and again.

An offer of loans, with spiteful sermons from the finance minister, that government believes in empowerment not entitlement.

It hardly needs to be said that entitlement is reserved for those corporate & businessmen whose bank loans worth 11 lakh crore rupees can be written off since they have the right ability to buy electoral bonds & other munificence that they are capable to do to the power to be. Of course, the politicians are the best entitled class in India today.

Why this government of minimal performance and maximum noise believes that it is doing best? Any clues by anyone to anyone?

We are at the threshold of French Revolution sort of circumstances where people asked for bread, queen asked them to eat cake instead.

Does it make sense to ask those who have had no income for more than two months, who have likely borrowed money to tide over, to take more loans? Does it sound situational with a slightly different context with the French revolution? Yes, replace bread with some paltry cash & cake with loan. I am not telling the icing on the cake.

Outright cash in hand would have ensured that they could buy their needs and start their work. But our Government prefers to give them fiscal stimulus by way of loans to restart their business and buy sustenance to be repaid after a moratorium with interest. It is sure way to make the capital sink as it would largely used to ensure food security & hence gone as there would be few with repaying abilities.

Of India's workforce of around 40 crores, 93% are in the unorganized sector with extremely fluctuating incomes even at the best of times. The lockdown has crushed their livelihood with risk of infection from COVID 19 rising exponentially. The Government chose to play with numbers when it announced that the package was 20 lakh crores rupees. It was actually not.

The actual cash outlay by the government this year and the impact on the fiscal deficit will be far less. Most of the government’s proposals are credit-focused or are aimed at easing liquidity concerns for many affected sectors.

In some of these cases, any costs incurred will be initially covered through banks or other financial institutions and thus not result in actual cash outgo by the Centre.

What had been included was additional liquidity injected into the system through a number of steps and measures taken by the RBI from February to March adding up to more than 8 lakh crores & it also included the 1.7 lakh crores package announced in March. So, it was not 20 lakh crores but half that amount.

The truth is that the entire package is designed, not to mitigate the woes of poor and workers, but to push the government agenda of pro-corporate reforms. This was summarized by the four Ls: labour, Land, Laws and Liquidity.

The lockdown is being used as a hurried opportunity to further the concentration and control over the nation's economic resources in private hands and to reverse basic rights of the working people and hand them over to private operators on a platter.

Nine state governments have diluted labour laws, including the extension of working hours to 12 by some. Three governments led by the BJP have suspended many labour laws for three years, basically turning workers into slaves with hardly any rights in the name of national emergencies out of COVID 19.

The cash in the hands of poor and migrant labour, including food provisions for two months, is not more than free food for two months budgeted at Rs. 3,500 crores, Out of PMGKY package of Rs. 170,000 crores- only Rs. 8000 crores would go in Jan-Dhan accounts ,  Free LPG to 8 crore families for next three months would translate to Rs. 6,000 crores assuming two cylinders availed in three months. The senior citizens as per government records are 10.4 million and they would get Rs. 1000 for three months, so it would mean Rs. 3120 crores maximum.

Summing up the direct cash benefits that government is rolling out is Rs. 17,620, which is hardly Rs. 20,620 crores at maximum number and with maximum amount. We know by experience that hardly 50% beneficiaries actually would get the cash, but given the benefit of doubts- let us even take the full cash payout & that is hardly 8.8% of Rs. 20 lakh crores.

The Rs 20 Lakh Crore COVID-19 Package is a case of a hollow large drum that sounds loud, therefore, noisy.

It is largely policy tweaking and fiscal facilitation or deferment or setting aside for a period of time that takes the bulk of the package declared and that is by no mean a mean figure of almost 92%.

Now we can say with confidence that our government has learnt the art of fooling most for most of the time.

I am, at last, going to say what others have been saying for several years- Wah Modi Ji Wah.