Author: M.V.Kamath
Publication: Orgnaniser
Date: September 12, 2004
URL: http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=40&page=39
Introduction: Ministers are engaged
more in spreading hatred against the Opposition than in doing a good job
at their desk. How long is the country supposed to put up with this? How
long, oh, how long?
The Left government of West Bengal
has been in power for over two decades and its administrative record is
about the worst in the country. Among the most socially developed states
according to an India Today poll, are Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Himachal Pradesh,
Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. West Bengal does not figure among the ten
most literate states nor among the ten states which have the highest per
capita income. Indeed after over two decades of communist rule West Bengal
has the highest percentage of people below the poverty line (28.01). It
ranks seventh among Indian states having the highest infant mortality (55
out of 1,000 live births). It must be about the worst administered state
after Bihar, which doesn't say much about its communist administration.
And yet with its 60 MPs in the Lok Sabha, it is the Left which is keeping
Sonia Gandhi's UPA government alive and the arrogance of the Leftist is
to be seen to be believed.
It was Sitaram Yechury, CPM leader
who told a TV channel: "When we bite, we bite strongly and that is something
I hope this government does not want to learn the hard way." Another CPM
leader was heard to remark: "When we say 'sit', the government sits; when
we say 'stand', the government stands". And that is the truth.
All this would have even been forgiven
if the West Bengal's government's record had been clean. The truth is:
it isn't. The state is run not by an impartial officialdom, but by a ruthless
party which has unionised everyone, including the police. The citizen is
helpless. The state economy is in a mess. How deep is the mess was recently
recounted by Arun Shourie who should know. In a series of three articles
in a national paper, Shourie exposed the utter inefficiency if not irresponsibility
of a party which is holding the Sonia Gandhi government to ransom.
Such is the inefficiency of the
West Bengal government that the Comptroller and Auditor General's report
was forced to take note of it. Said the CAG: "Despite having constituted
a separate department in 1972 to tackle the problem of industrial sickness
in the state, the Government failed even to develop a system for identification
of sick and closed units on a regular basis even after the expiry of 27
years." What does that say of communist efficiency? Or take the instance
of the Sunderbans Sugarbeet Processing Company which started commercial
production in 1988. This company was known as one of the most pollution-producting
industries. Understandably, the State Pollution Control Board filed an
objection, that itself taking two years. Instead of abiding by the rules
and installing an effluent treatment plant, the company stopped production.
That was in Decemebr 1990. For the next eleven years its employees got
paid for doing no work. It may be presumed that all the workers are communist
in their ideology.
During 1997-98 out of twenty Public
Sector Units, only two units reportedly earned a profit of Rs 1.34 crores.
The other eighteen with a paid-up capital of Rs 56.60 crores accumulated
losses of Rs 708.78 crores. There was no one to question how this came
to pass. The CAG report for the year ending 1999 furnished findings about
four units. It was noted that mismanagement, a ruinous work culture brought
them all to bankruptcy. The accumulated losses of one company amounted
to 4,495 per cent of its paid-up capital! As against the installed capacity
for producing 96 machines per year, the company manufactured a total of
74 machines in ten years from 1988-89 to 1998-99. Then there is the case
of the West Bengal Liverstock Processing Development Corporation Ltd which
set up an abattoir at Durgapur in 1982. It had to be closed down two years
later. Even earlier, the government had set up another abattoir at a cost
of Rs 19 lakhs. The project had to be abandoned.
Noted the CAG report: "Failure of
the government to wind up the company even after closure of its activities
for the past seventeen years led to payment of idle wages of Rs 1.25 crores
to its employees." In other words, for seventeen long years the employees
were regularly paid salaries for doing no work. And yet, Sonia Gandhi listens
attentively to Jyoti Basu. How long is this tamasha going to last?
Ever since the Sonia Gandhi government
came to power, the economy has been sliding downward and the liberal press
has been taking little notice of it. After years of price stability under
the BJP-led NDA government, inflation touched 7.61 per cent as on July
31 and is expected to rise to over 10 per cent in the not-too-distant date.
The foreign exchange reserves are depleting and have dropped from the NDA's
all-time high figure of $120 billion to $118 billion. And the rupee had
started to depreciate. The Prime Minister is helpless. He cannot act on
his own as he has to get his orders from Sonia Gandhi. Such is his helplessness
that when the Punjab Chief Minister, Capt. Amarinder Singh unilaterally
scrapped a three-state river water-sharing treaty that was plainly illegal,
he could do nothing. What is worse, by raising the bogey of Punjab militancy,
the Congress Chief Minister is almost threatening the Centre that he would
create trouble if he is not backed by the Union Government. There seems
to be no government in Manipur which has been in a state of revolt for
some months now. The liberal press has no time to study events in Manipur.
As an MP and a distinguished columnist noted, "There is a virtual disconnect
between the people of Manipur and the administration over the alleged rape
and murder of an underground woman activist..." Actually there seems to
be no government in Delhi.
Each minister says or does things
in his own disconnected way. Arjun Singh, without any sanction from Sonia
Gandhi makes accusations against the RSS and threatens to dismiss alleged
RSS sympathisers from government departments. But which government departments?
Does anybody know? Another minister, Mani Shankar Aiyar makes uncalled
for remarks against Veer Savarkar and gets away with it. No one really
knows whether he is speaking for himself or for the government. Overnight
that great miracle Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, reputed for his talent
to produce dream Budgets, seems to have disappeared. Dr Manmohan Singh,
as Finance Minister had given a licence to the Global Trust Bank (GTB)
in 1994. It collapsed ten years later and had to be resurrected. The Manmohan
Singh Cabinet has 'tainted' ministers, one of whom disappeared overnight
while another, Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav is busy using railway
money to give goodies to his constituency-and no questions are asked. Ministers
are engaged more in spreading hatred against the Opposition than in doing
a good job at their desk. How long is the country supposed to put up with
this? How long, oh, how long?
