What are the three things you wish for from the Budget?
Control
inflation: While India has maintained healthy growth rates, there are
concerns over rising cost of living, production, talent, staying in
business, which is inherently not driven by demand-supply regimes but
by systemic complexity and lack of infrastructural support in the
system. Unchecked inflation adds to the woes.
Rakesh Shukla, founder and chief executive officer, Writers Block, a technical publishing and training firm.
Simpler
tax structures: The simplest premise here is that the cost of paying
tax should not be more than 1% of the tax paid. The point is not
necessarily lower taxes but simpler taxes. The experience has been that
simplified and ‘rational’ taxes actually raise tax compliance.
Something
for everyone: The Budget is an exercise the entire country looks
forward to and not being addressed is a disappointment… I want
something for that farmer in the field, that worker on the street, that
lady in the hospital, the staff in my office, my wife and me. It is a
tough one, but that is how it is.
If you could end one thing, what would it be?
There
are way too many...ineffective government schemes. Visit any government
ministry and make a list of schemes that are in place on paper and
compare that to the actual impact and work on the ground. You will get
the real picture of how every year hundreds of abhiyans, yojanas,
plans, schemes are started. But there is no monitoring, audit and
closure to most of them. The government needs to govern—which starts
with keeping strict controls on government expenditure that is not
yielding results.
If you were the finance minister, what would be the one thing outside your industry you would want in the Budget? Actually,
there are two of them. One is making manufacturing more competitive by
way of strengthening industrial infrastructure, simplifying regulatory
processes and making the industrial environment legally, socially and
economically robust. The second is about the ‘essentials of
life’—health and education. There should be an emphasis on quality
health care and building a social security system that will support the
elderly, people from weaker strata of society, lower middle class,
service professionals such as drivers, maids, plumbers, who, while they
add to the economic value of the nation, have little to look forward to
from growth.
What is the one thing you don’t want changed?
The
continued thrust on infrastructure, health-care and primary education.
However, one would want more stringent audits on plans like the Sarva
Shiksha Abhiyan (education for all project) and the Anganwadi
(pre-school) schemes. A lot of them, not necessarily those quoted, are
well conceived but ill implemented.
Which Budget disappointed you the most? Why?
Budgets
are a huge balancing act... There is no way that all constituencies can
be addressed in the same discussion. Till such time the fundamentals
like growth, inflation, interest rates and tax structures are not
disproportionately altered, no budget is disappointing and I don’t
think there has been any such budget.
One proposal you think is shot down in every budget but shouldn’t be.
The
issue of FDI (foreign direct investment) in certain sectors, while not
a matter for debate in traditional budget documents, deserves more
attention, urgency and action. Since it is a very sensitive and complex
topic, it is clobbered down even before any genuine debate reaches the
table.
What would you consider to be inclusive growth?
Inclusive
growth implies creation of economically empowering systems and
pipelines at all levels. It does not mean keeping or making a section
of the society incompetent, which has historically been the case. So
whether it means creating talent pipelines for the manufacturers,
simplifying paperwork for the services sector, creating platforms for
social equality or increasing systemic transparency, as far as I am
concerned, they are all pillars of inclusive growth.
Rakesh Shukla is founder and chief executive officer, Writers Block, a technical publishing and training firm.
By Raghu Krishnan
