By Apoorva Dixit:
World Bank has lend a record $9.3 billion (Rs.42, 000 crore) to India in 2010. With this, the World Bank’s current India Portfolio consists of 65 active projects with a total commitment of around $19 billion (Rs.85, 000 crore). It was difficult even to imagine a whopping amount like this. The amount is invested in different projects which also include capital markets, infrastructure, social service etc.
So, World Bank has been very generous towards India in lending this humongous amount in 2010. But do we really need this much of money? Gone are the days when the writers, poets, etc would refer to India as the ‘Golden Bird’ and would lament over its poor condition. India is still a Golden Bird and India 2010 has proved that to each and every citizen. Doesn’t make any sense right? How can a country taking loans at this magnitude be called a Golden Bird?
Look at some other figures now. Let us remember top ten trends of India in 2010. The words like, Adarsh, 2G, Land Scams (in many states), CWG, IPL and many more would come to your mind. Let us now consider only 2G scam. According to sources the value of 2G scam is Rs. 1.76L Crore. It is more than the total amount given by World Bank to India, Mexico, South Africa, Brazil, Indonesia, Egypt, Turkey, Vietnam, Hungary and China COMBINED in the year 2010. The experts have estimated the value of these scams could be well beyond Rs. 2,00,000 crore and this is a very conservative approach.
According to the Planning Commission of India, 27.5% was living below poverty line in 2004-05. 24% of Indian Population is considered to be very poor. Going by the estimates, the number is around 290 million. If we simply divide the scam amount by the number of financially poor, we get Rs.6900/head (or rather Rs.6900/empty stomach).
Have you read ‘Ignited Minds’ by Dr.APJ Abdul Kalam? Even if you have not, it is pretty obvious to say that: ‘Our enemy is Poverty, It is the root cause of our problems and should be the object of our fight, not our own’. One-third of world’s poor live in India. Now imagine, if our very able politicians were satisfied with their justified salary and had distributed this amount amongst poor, the poverty would have reduced marginally. Is this something too much to ask for? Forget about distribution, the culprit of these scams is not even put in jail. No money is recovered.
We saw Kasab firing on the CST and so we caught him. We put him on trial. If we know that a certain person has high (read: obvious) chances of being involved in a scam, why don’t we jail him and put him on trial? BTW, if we add the amount the government has spent on Mr. Kasab in 2010, then trust me, India would be a Golden Bird on Silver Tree of Diamond studded Platinum Fruits. But yes, we want to play fair with all, and so let us just ignore $6.5million spent on him as of Jan 2010. Let us also ignore the claims of certain people about the black money present in the Swiss bank accounts of some elite personalities. But how can we ignore such scams? Can we afford to forget it?
Guys, Golden Bird is still alive, but it is being gang raped repeatedly by the people who are involved in these scams, and many similar ones that don’t get the limelight. This is a criminal act, and the whole country should be put on trial for Criminal Negligence. Just watching a Criminal Activity without raising a voice against it, is more serious a crime.