In the past, I have generally dealt with only one subject in these articles. Today, I am writing about more than one issue that may be of interest to readers and will help expose some of the hollow claims of the Modi government.
The first is the sky-rocketing prices of petrol and diesel that the common man uses almost on a daily basis. When the present government assumed office in May 2014, the price of petroleum crude in the international market was around US $105. The government was lucky and reaped a huge bonanza all these years because crude prices declined to as low as $26 per barrel and stayed below $30 per barrel for many months after it assumed office. In the course of time, prices started going up again and today may have reached around $73/75 per barrel. Earlier, when prices were climbing up, the burden was distributed three ways among the government which reduced its taxes, oil companies which assumed a part of the financial burden and the consumer who paid a higher price. By the same logic, when international oil prices declined, the benefit should have been shared equally among the three stakeholders. But the government was greedy and kept all the profit for itself. The consumer was left high and dry and continued to pay higher prices for petrol and diesel even when international prices had crashed.
The other news which would have surely rattled many people is about counterfeit currency. It was claimed by no less a person than the Prime Minister himself that demonetization would break the back of the counterfeiters and there would be no fake currency in future. But according to a report prepared by the Financial Intelligence Unit of the government, the number of times fake notes have been deposited in banks has gone up to 7.33 lakh in 2016-17 compared to 4.10 lakh times in 2015-16. Obviously, the counterfeiters are one step ahead of the government at all times.
According to another report, the declining number of operators in every telecom circle in the country has led to large-scale job losses. The number of operators per circle has come down from an average of around 10 operators about a year and a half ago to only about six today. According to a report prepared by recruitment firm CIEL HR, some 80,000- 90,000 jobs could be lost as a result of this development. In the meanwhile, the government is bending over backwards to prove that new job opportunities are increasing at a fast pace and using the data available with the Employees Provident Fund Organization to prove its point. Many economists have challenged this claim of the government and have asserted that EPFO data is not employment data. It only represents formalization of those who are already in jobs by their registration under EPFO. But who can prevent the government from telling pure lies?
Another example of good governance for any government is presenting time and cost overruns of important infrastructural projects. Every government in the past has wrestled with this problem but not with much success. But is not the Modi government different from all the past governments? Is it not more efficient than all of them? Then why is it that, according to a report put out by the ministry of statistics and program implementation, the cost overrun in 356 large infrastructure projects is to the extent of 2.19 lakh crore? 258 projects, out of these 356, have also suffered from time overruns.
In the meanwhile, there is some reassuring (?) news on the non-economic front. Navinder Gupta, the newly-appointed BJP deputy chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, has described the rape and murder of the Kathua 8-year-old girl as "a chotti si baat" (a minor issue). The BJP has also appointed Rajeev Jasrotia, its MLA from Kathua who was largely responsible for the public protests in favour of the alleged rapists, as its new minister in that state.
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