UPA policies are leading to a scorched earth syndrome
Taken together, the UPA’s social spending thrust (and benign neglect of economic reforms) amount to a scorched-earth policy.
Officially, it is all about inclusive growth and correcting historical wrongs to the disadvantaged. But the net effect of these policies will be to leave a fiscal and economic mess that no successor government will be able to handle easily. If Rahul Gandhi actually wins the elections in 2014, he will have a time-bomb on his hands.
The only thing that’s gone right for India this year is the monsoon. The Indian Meteorological Department predicted with considerable aplomb in June that the monsoon would be sub-normal. Thankfully, the prediction went wrong. The IMD now has the unenviable record of seven wrong forecasts out of 10.
The fiscal wrongs, created by excessive spending, excess borrowing, and failure to rein in oil subsidies, has had to be righted by a tougher-than-needed monetary policy of rising interest rates. The economy has already hit a speedbreaker. The GDP growth target has been brought down from 9 percent around budget-time to less than 8 percent now. The year will probably end well below 8 percent. Inflation is close to double-digits (9.78 percent), and the Index of Industrial Production was down to 3.3 percent in July.
To correct the fiscal wrong, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee is stamping on spending – but largely in the capital outlays area – which is making things worse. When government fails to spend on things like infrastructure, the slowdown can only accelerate as business incomes are crimped. Mukherjee should cut wasteful expenditure, not infrastructure and capital spending.
The Food Security Bill, primarily intended to ensure that no one goes hungry in India, by making rice available at Rs 3 and wheat at Rs 2 a kg, will cost over Rs 1,00,000 crore in food subsidies – thus busting the budget and pressuring inflation. To procure so much food for the scheme, minimum support prices will keep rising faster than inflation, and the free market for grains will be starved of supplies. Can this lead to anything but even more inflation?
The only answer to this puzzle is the possibility that the UPA has run out of ideas and is pursuing policies with the single-objective of winning the next election.
However, these policies will surely bankrupt the government by 2014. So is it planning a scorched earth policy from which no successor government can hope to escape? Or does it anyway expect to lose the next election, and so doesn’t care?