It’s Budget season. I hope Arun Jaitley walks the talk. So far, we’ve heard just the right things that the country’s Finance Minister needs to tell us before his maiden Budget.
“If you indulge in populism, you burden the exchequer. You expect the FM to impose higher taxes. You expect him to reduce the spending power in the hands of the consumer. You want him to tax every activity of life. You convert yourself into a high taxation society so that you can indulge in populism. It does not work,” Mr Jaitley said at the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India on Tuesday.
This is refreshing when most TV channels are imploring him to pander to their middle audiences. Read the FM’s word with the time Prime Minister Narendra Modi spent with secretaries to his Government.
Ignored, bruised, maimed by diarchy in the previous regime, this was NaMo’s way of getting the administrative satraps wake up and smell the Gujarat chai.
Ending endemic policy paralysis in our country isn’t just about eschewing populism. It is getting 77 folks who head top ministries to run with the ball like CEOs. It’s also about telling our impressive set of regulators to stop making section officers out of these GOI secretaries.
Most regulators, save for Reserve Bank Governor Raghuram Rajan, are former secretaries. But no sooner they get a regulatory sinecure, they start making dramatic averments. Is it surprising that their juniors follow suit and arrogate to themselves the role of rubbishing the ministries under their purviewIJ
Here, the media is partly to blame. Any piece of paper with “CBI,” “CVC,” or “C&AG” on the letterhead is brandished as “Breaking News.” No one explains to her ordinary reader (or editor!) that the “noting” may well have been an observation on just one of hundreds of decisions that a ministry/secretary has taken in the entire year.
Now, inquisition is a regulator’s job, particularly where notional loss is involved - but taken as gospel truth, the secretary today is being made to feel like an undertrial.
Once media has prejudged us, blood bath in 140 characters has dampened executive decision making even further. With the twitterati beneath their wings, is it surprising therefore that our regulators have started donning the role of policy prescribersIJ
The mood gets darker when secretaries in the present lot are retiring/transferred in short durations. A grand successor is trained to defend herself personally rather than what her department decided 1-10 years back.
Surely, the subjugation of India’s economic frame suits rabble rousers like Arvind Kejriwal – but if Narendra Modi wants to restore a modicum of administrative delivery, it is time PM’s Principal Secretary Nripendra Misra, a distinguished secretary in telecom and fertizers, asked various regulators for a no-holds-barred with Mr Modi. Inquisition and roll back can wait – India and her youth can’t.
(The columnist works at the intersect of media, regulation and strategy on RIl. Views here are personal.Tweets @therohitbansal.)