This post is about the most sensitive topics of India Politics - Subsidies & Reservations. Recently we saw the hike in diesel prices & a cap in the number of subsidized LPG cylinder (i.e. cutting the subsidies on them by the Central Government) and a huge uproar went around and we are seeing mass protests and bandhs till date. The justification for such protests is that the middle and lower class (stratification on the basis of Income) of our society can't just afford a hike.
Whereas the upper-middle and upper classes don't mind about a cut because even when they can afford it very comfortably they are still enjoying a huge subsidy.
For e.g. before the hike the government was providing a subsidy of almost Rs 17 per litre on Diesel (as mentioned by the Hon. Prime Minister in his address to the Nation) and after the hike it is still more than Rs. 10 per litre to everybody irrespective of the fact whether you are a rich SUV owner or a poor tempo driver.
And this screams a question : Why are we giving subsidies to people who don't need it ? and as a consequence of that we have to cut the overall subsidies and make life much more difficult for the overly burdened poor people.
Shouldn't we try to move towards an economical way of giving subsidies i.e. people with a certain level of income don't get any subsidy and people below that level get a subsidy.
Such a move will not only help our poor and will be step in the way to decrease the huge gap between the rich and the poor in our country. I can understand that implementing this in a country as big and diverse as ours will be a very difficult task but we have to move towards it.
One possible way i can see for this would be to use our Unique Identification card Aadhar when it is fully distributed and functional. We can link the income levels of a person/family with his/her unique identity and that will determine whether they will get a subsidy or not.
I understand that this is being very ambitious but such ambitious aims on the one hand might take a long and hard time for implementation but will prove to reform our country for the better on the other.
Similarly for the reservations we have in all sorts of things be it higher education, government jobs and now even the recently talked about reservations in promotions in government jobs etc. Reservations are from the time of our Independence and are aimed at giving opportunities to the weaker classes to come up but everyday we see huge misuse of these reservations. We can easily see well off people belonging to weaker classes who don't necessarily need any reservations taking advantage of such reservations and in turn causing the policy to never reach the actually needy people (despite measures like creamy layer etc). Also nowadays we have all sorts of people in need in almost all sections and types of classes, so how do we take care of them ?
Again i think time has come & we have to think about handling reservations in a economical way rather than on the basis of caste etc.
And as evident above, I truly believe that our upcoming Unique Identity card has huge potential to support & facilitate such Institutional changes in our country (maybe another post in the future)
Whereas the upper-middle and upper classes don't mind about a cut because even when they can afford it very comfortably they are still enjoying a huge subsidy.
For e.g. before the hike the government was providing a subsidy of almost Rs 17 per litre on Diesel (as mentioned by the Hon. Prime Minister in his address to the Nation) and after the hike it is still more than Rs. 10 per litre to everybody irrespective of the fact whether you are a rich SUV owner or a poor tempo driver.
And this screams a question : Why are we giving subsidies to people who don't need it ? and as a consequence of that we have to cut the overall subsidies and make life much more difficult for the overly burdened poor people.
Shouldn't we try to move towards an economical way of giving subsidies i.e. people with a certain level of income don't get any subsidy and people below that level get a subsidy.
Such a move will not only help our poor and will be step in the way to decrease the huge gap between the rich and the poor in our country. I can understand that implementing this in a country as big and diverse as ours will be a very difficult task but we have to move towards it.
One possible way i can see for this would be to use our Unique Identification card Aadhar when it is fully distributed and functional. We can link the income levels of a person/family with his/her unique identity and that will determine whether they will get a subsidy or not.
I understand that this is being very ambitious but such ambitious aims on the one hand might take a long and hard time for implementation but will prove to reform our country for the better on the other.
Similarly for the reservations we have in all sorts of things be it higher education, government jobs and now even the recently talked about reservations in promotions in government jobs etc. Reservations are from the time of our Independence and are aimed at giving opportunities to the weaker classes to come up but everyday we see huge misuse of these reservations. We can easily see well off people belonging to weaker classes who don't necessarily need any reservations taking advantage of such reservations and in turn causing the policy to never reach the actually needy people (despite measures like creamy layer etc). Also nowadays we have all sorts of people in need in almost all sections and types of classes, so how do we take care of them ?
Again i think time has come & we have to think about handling reservations in a economical way rather than on the basis of caste etc.
And as evident above, I truly believe that our upcoming Unique Identity card has huge potential to support & facilitate such Institutional changes in our country (maybe another post in the future)
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