Teach Your Children
Nearly half—47 per cent—of the people polled feel Sinha should focus on better education.Asked to name the three vital issues before this budget, they list power supply and safe drinking water, and lower consumer prices as their second and third priorities respectively. And, mind you, 88 per cent of this group believes that the budget affects their lives quite a lot and more than half of them pay tax.
The answer is clear evidence that the reforms have had a tremendous impact on the average Indian. More than anything, liberalisation of the economy has raised their aspirations and demands—60 per cent of the respondents are sore that reforms have benefited only the rich and their lives have just got tougher than before, what with prices rising steeply in the same period. An overwhelming 87 per cent charge that corruption has pervaded all sectors of the economy. But they also admit that some work has indeed taken place—infrastructure is better now—57 per cent say that roads, power, water situation have improved, the most in the capital city of Delhi. And poverty, if not reduced considerably, hasn’t worsened—only a quarter of the people polled say poverty has increased and 41 per cent believe Indians are better off now than 10 years ago. The most encouraging signal for an FM who wants to change the face of the economy for the better is that the citizens want better education. It’s his best bet too. Only a discerning people can safeguard a free economy. And only an educated people can appreciate that little things like cheap edibles and items of daily use, safe drinking water, assured power supply or roads that lead everywhere are the easiest to desire, but the toughest to achieve.
A Billion Reformers Now?
This is also why citizens wouldn’t want cheap power/water of dubious quality—72 per cent said they’d rather pay more for assured and safe supplies. The fact they are unhappy with the government’s performance in its traditional areas is also clear from the fact that 78 per cent feel psus should be privatised. Some 33 per cent are emphatic that psus should be privatised as fast as possible. And 76 per cent feel the government is overstaffed and should downsize itself as much as possible. But about 42 per cent are kind enough to suggest that it should do so gracefully by allowing the excess people to retire and not by just shedding load.
One of the most important findings of the citizens’ poll: mncs are welcome in manufacturing. Clearly, if the shabby shelves of neighbourhood grocery stores have started looking 1,000 per cent brighter, varied and colourful, Indians have welcomed the change.And they know, it’s thanks to the competition from mncs. About 16 per cent of the respondents strongly feel mncs should be allowed free entry into manufacturing, with 34 per cent wanting to exercise caution so that they don’t throw existing Indian companies out of business and 17 per cent preferring to restrict them to technology sectors. One area where the average Indian differs with the ceos: while both want income-tax rates to go down and definitely not raised, two-thirds of the former don’t believe agriculture income-tax is such a good idea. Why? Over half of them think it won’t be politically possible.And of course, the prevailing drought with consistently low growth rates for the sector over the past two years may have influenced their opinion.
But what the Outlook-cnbc poll predominantly brings out is that thanks to the reforms, even the average non-tax-paying Indian has started being seriously concerned about the burning economic issues before the government, which even a few years back, used to be the subject of class-room lectures or TV debates among academics.And in the capitals of the badly-governed states, the pessimism seems a little more pronounced. Prices have affected Delhiites the most, as has bad infrastructure in this rapidly growing capital. But the financial capital takes the lead in progressive economic thinking—Mumbai citizens don’t hesitate to seek large-scale downsizing of government or full privatisation of its units. And Calcutta is the most conservative, yet also the least hit by rising prices. In stark contrast, in the southern capitals of Bangalore and Hyderabad, there is a sense of work being done and progress being made, and some of the benevolence has worn off on the ruling nda too—Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad think the government is doing a good job. But what springs the ultimate surprise is the fond memory across the country for Manmohan Singh. He changed India, therefore he gets 57 per cent of the vote. Sinha, with 20 per cent, has already overtaken P. Chidambaram. The only way he can go is up—that is, if he can read the peoples’ lips and take reforms further.