Sharad Pawar finally decided to fly the “crammed” economy class with a commercial airline. After a lot of fuss and furor, ministers are slowly weaning themselves away from the luxurious lap of business class comfort.
The monsoons have failed and the clouds of drought are looming over the nation. The UPA government, in an austerity mood swing, requested ministers to go slow on their lavish lifestyles to show solidarity with the less fortunate farming community.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s repeated requests to ministers to trim costs were, however, not without friction. Unhappy ministers were trying to justify their five-star accommodations and fancy travel arrangements. The suave Shashi Tharoor, chose to enter public service, but wanted to keep his privacy intact. He preferred a five-star stay to Kerala House because it had “no gym or privacy”, to quote him. S.M. Krishna was also censured for staying in five-star comfort, though he claimed he was on a Spartan diet of the made-in-Taj sambhar, rice and rasam. Both claimed to have sponsored their stay.
Sharad Pawar felt flying economy class would curb his privacy, and would leave him without time for seeing files. How many files will Mr Pawar clear on-board, that he does not while sitting in his office. A flight to anywhere in India could take two to two-and-a-half hours. Of this, some time would be spent on on-board snacking. Or does he refuse his snack? At least, his frame belies that.
There were other issues of the travails of travelling by economy class like seats being inhospitable to the “tall order”. The repeated austerity announcements shocked and shook our khadi-clad politicians. They ultimately sobered down, especially after the media splashed ugly stories and edits on the wailing, fussy politicians. Despite loving their “privacy”, their image took a beating in public, and that is where their vote count is.
The austerity drive by the government is, no doubt, a good decision. But it is rather difficult to snatch this opulence from ministers suddenly after letting them savour expensive tastes. The country’s leaders must learn to disembark from this orbit of luxury cushioned by public money at all times. The obscene amount of money being spent on them could be channelised and spent for deprived sectors like public health, housing and education. The ministers could spare a thought towards the 41.6 per cent of population (approximately 445 million) that is living below the poverty line. (Source: http://www.ijcm.org.)%0d/
The reason for quoting this report is to juxtapose this scenario, coupled with the threat of drought, with the heavy ministerial balance sheet, showing inflated travel and telephone bills. The government talks austerity only when there is crisis. Why must there be a crisis to trigger this reaction?
Our politicians treat their ministerial berths like a five-year recurring deposit scheme, helping themselves to luxury benefits and suitcase politicking, squeezing the coffers dry. Is there no hope?
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Its sad that such empty gestures are all that is required to be politically successful.
ReplyDeleteI don't see what's going to be achieved by travelling economy class and staying in a cheap hotel. You compromise their security and give of an extremely cheap image of India. A so called super-power to be that sends their politicians in coach class?
In the grand scheme of things the money that we're talking about is probably peanuts.
I think you should be taking them to task more over their job performance rather than the perks that they get. The perks have to be there, both to keep up the image of the country and to help motivate these people.
I do not believe in empty perks without performance. Public money need not be spent on lifestyles of the rich and famous politicians.
ReplyDeleteAbout keeping up the image of our country, we have the largest number of billionairs in the world (Forbes)! The corporate face of India can be given that responsibility of keeping up the image of India.
In any case, if we do have to keep the perks intact for our political leaders for the image of our country, then let us corporatise politics. Let the perks be performance-based. We might argue that elections in democratic India are the perfect review of performances. But that is not really true because issues like caste, class and political patronage magnify the process.
While i agree with Ashwin that these are mere gestures which do not mean much in economic terms, reducing consumption or travelling 'coach class' in no way represents a 'cheap image'.
ReplyDeleteOn the same account, what would you term layoff's and sell outs which have happended in this downturn. What would you call Germany's support for buying up Opel or America's investment in GM just to save a few thousand private jobs?
The world is where we are, due to the indiscrimitate ways of the 'developed world'
We need to be able to distinguish between 'spending' and 'splurging'