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B. S. Rathor

The Finance Minister, Mr Jaswant Singh, the Minister of State for Finance, Mr G. Ramachandran, and the Chairman, Task Force on Direct Taxes, Dr Vijay Kelkar... Will the political and economic agendas find a common meeting ground in the Budget?

THOUGH it may be premature to say that the Kelkar Task Force was futile since the last word on it is yet to be said, all indications are that it is edging towards a controversial end, like many other panels.

It is true that the democratic polity warrants critical decision-making to be done on a platform of shared views or consensus. How much of this consultative philosophy has been followed is difficult to accept.

The ruling parties that obtained a two-thirds majority have demonstrated their democratic limitations by bulldozing political, economic and social mandates regardless of their acceptance. The Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi was perhaps the last nail on our democracy — though, subsequently, public apologies have been made.

Within such an environment, one can question the credibility of the innumerable commissions created by the successive governments in power.

An analysis of the value package delivered and the costs incurred will demonstrate their benign nature.

Commissions, committees, task forces or panels, call them anything, they are the same. They have more commonalities than differences. They all comprise eminent persons — favoured politicians, bureaucrats and meritoriously-retired government officials and they all incur a lot of expenditure.

Hard-earned taxpayers money. The very purpose of their creation is questionable and debatable, as most are discarded to the recycle bins but are seldom recycled. Sometimes, these fora are constituted to divert political and public attention from controversial issues; others to demonstrate the government's high moral concerns for justice and fair play, while some are created to gain political advantage.

And, ironically, there are also committees and commissions that are formed to oversee another commission. Their job is to negate the politically-unacceptable findings of the previous one and save embarrassment to the ruling party. It does not matter if such bodies are constituted by the political parties or by the government. The Kelkar Commission is also one of them.

Experience has shown that a majority of the final reports are fully or partially rejected and the expensively-bound reports gather dust till they are archived or buried. The Kelkar Commission is a very recent one whose final recommendations to the Government have been made public. How much of it is accepted and how much is not, will be known shortly.

But the debate and the controversy has already begun. The Rajnath Committee was created. Headed by the former BJP Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Mr Rajnath Singh, the committee's apparent mandate being to generate public opinion to reject those aspects of the Kelkar report that are not in sync with the party's agenda.

Political victory at the hustling is far more important than pure economics. While the merits and demerits of the Kelkar report are being debated by experts, there is no denying the terrible waste in terms of time and money in the making and subsequent discarding of these task forces.

The country needs to preserve every bit of its resource and not waste it, in the guise of democracy on matters that are necessitated by political compulsions. The Kelkar panel is only an illustration. There is the Bofors Commission where the lid closes and opens whenever political manipulators feel the need for it. Thus, commissions are deliberately kept alive as long as they serve their creators.

The Finance Minister, Mr Jaswant Singh, brought in a breath of fresh air when he talked about taking the Budget process to the common man. He also went a step further to say that the process will not tread the beaten track of pre-Budget parleys with all sections of industry and influential CEOs and lobbyists. He thinks all this is a waste of time. He also talked about transparency by putting the Budget proposals on the Net for public engagement. Mr Jaswant Singh has been in the saddle for a brief period and already there are doubts on the veracity of the Budget-making process. Though the final Budget is a few days away, `concept rollbacks' are being discussed.

Mr Jaswant Singh has the tremendous opportunity to deliver what no other Finance Minister has been able to. Will he be allowed to do so is the question?

A people-focussed and growth-oriented economic policy, supported by the annual accounting measures (the Budget), can well transform the sluggish economy. Such an approach will include hard but well-conceived measures to help the cause of the common man. All this need not come from subsidies and exemptions. Today's political agenda is well-separated from the economic agenda. Will Mr Jaswant Singh follow the latter? If he does, his party may lose votes. If not, the people will continue to suffer hardships.

This is the dilemma. One expects economic decision-making to be done with integrity of purpose and a commitment few politicians have. He appears to have the courage to do an economic Budget. But will he do it? Or, will he also go about the usual path of pleasing his party.

The way the Kelkar panel has progressed so far makes one feel that the political forces may not allow a sensible economic policy. It is not to support the recommendations made in the final report.

It is the political rejection of some very good aspects of the report that is of concern. If that happens, the process and the manoeuvrings could well be carried to the Budget, with the elections looming ahead.

Was it necessary for the Finance Ministry to commit valuable time and resources, knowing very well that the political leadership may not accept such radical proposals as farm tax, doing away of tax incentives for savings and others. It will be hard to believe that Mr Jaswant Singh knows the path Dr Vijay Kelkar would pursue. Perhaps, a pre-arranged consensus could save the impending embarrassment. Why throw away the taxpayers' money in political endeavours? The Finance Minister could have done better by conserving Dr Kelkar's experience and capability to more productive use rather than put him on a task where he is aware that his report is only for a process and not for the content.

It is becoming more and more obvious that the so-called Second Generation Reforms will remain at the discussion stage for a long time to come before a solution is found.

The elections have to be won and, as usual, the people will pay the price. This is the legacy of our great nation of one billion people, ruled at different stages by different political parties, which have only one thing in common — keeping self-interest on top of the agenda, come what may.

First, the government instituted the Kelkar Commission on tax reforms. Dr Kelkar went about his task to the best of his fiscal and economic prowess and turned out a report.

The report was published and got widely circulated. The BJP executive was displeased and this was conveyed to the PMO. The Finance Minister listened pragmatically and agreed to remove all such measures that would be politically disadvantageous for the party. A Rajnath Committee was constituted by the BJP to look at the findings of the Kelkar panel — one committee to oversee another. The government and the parties will conserve a lot of time and money if they appoint a committee approved by the party and which agrees to tailor its proposals as required by the political masters so that they may sail through without dissent.

So much for the world's largest democracy.

(The author is Regional Director, Quorum-ITP Worldwide, industry advisor and analyst.)

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