Respected Modi Ji,
A moment when endless number of Indians are holding their
breath in constructive anticipation of you taking over the helm of Governance
of this Nation, I place some humble thoughts for you to evaluate so that
growth, opportunity, entrepreneurship can be percolated down to every single
unit of our population.
For many decades, oganisations such as the World Bank kept
on coaching the whole world that countries such as India need to control their
population for getting on the growth curve. We know by now, it was incorrect.
The real assets of any civilization and every nation are its people. Let nature
determine which soil helps flourish what population size. Yet, what is true is
that if each and every unit of any population can become self-reliant and
achieve the DNA of entrepreneurship then the larger the population the more
prosperous a nation begins to become.
Here is a simple point by point plan:
1.
Creation
of the Ministry of Growth & Development: A new ministry, directly under
the PMO, be created focusing on Growth & Development. A co-ordination
ministry that will work along with all other ministries, every District
Collector, every PSU chairman, every Revenue, Intelligence, Enforcement head
with a singular focus of expeditiously moving forward any and every growth and
development agenda.
2.
Power of
Incentives: Let there be a corpus of a minimum of 542 Crores of Rupees,
corresponding to the 542 Districts in India. This corpus shall only be for
rewarding District Administration level officers of the Government of India on
a competitive basis for their results and efforts in bringing growth and
development in their respective districts. Incentives work more than anything
else. Let the new model of Governance recognize the power of Economic
Incentives. Let there be tremenduous respect in the pursuit of growth at every
level and let there be pride awaiting to ride on the shoulders of the minutest
level of Administrative machinery. This corpus be spent in awarding,
incentivizing and monetizing the measurable growth and development at the
district level. Let the culture be established where the District Collector of
each and every district is the Chief Entrepreneur of his district, if not the
Chief Executive Officer of his district. Let there be an upwards pressure from
each district to seek resources, solutions and results for each district. Let
there be a new class of highest civilian honours and awards, such as the Param
Visisht Vikas Medals to celebrate the achievements of administrative officials who
would produce trail-blazing results of growth and development within their
domains and impact the most number of lives constructively in empowering them
to create Swarojgar. The endless Swarojgar Yojnas christened with the names of various
political luminaries of yester-decades is best discontinued with immediacy.
3.
Incentivise
Micro-Finance & bring it into
mainstream investment model: For decades there are tax breaks on
investments in Equity Linked Savings Schemes or by way of Long Term Capital
Gains or in Infrastructure Bonds. Let India in its new form under your
leadership be the first country in the world to recognize the power of
empowering the most microscopic economic apparatus in any nation, its lowest
economic denominators – the human beings who have no capital, no land, but they
do have an under-developed human capital. The Human Capital is the source of
all wealth. A piece of gold or a piece of land has no monetary value if human
beings do not accord it value. Hence, any other physical form of wealth is at
best a mechanism for storage of wealth, whereas all sources of wealth are the
human aspirations, abilities and persistence. Let us get to the core of all
wealth creation, i.e. to have a world class apparatus for developing the wealth
and income generating ability of every human being. The post Independence
political discourse has off and on appealed to emotions of the landless by
balking at the varied ideologies of land reforms. Why do we have to limit our
imagination for our rural brotherhood that unless and until they have land they
have no other abilities? Why? Each and every rural under-employed, landless or
capital-less individual has a far more powerful capital, that of being a human
being. Lets create the mechanism,
resources, opportunities for ensuring this human being flourishes. Competitively
structured Micro-Finance Corporations run by professionals be encouraged to be established.
It should be modeled on the lines of a Mutual Fund or Unit Trust. Any
contributions from individual assessees up to 1 lakh Rupees per annum and upto
10 lakh per annum from Corporate Assessees in such corporations be allowed as a
deduction from taxable income. Let there be no monopoly ever in any layer of
this new growth orbit. Competition allocates resources best.
4.
Establishment
of Skill Development Corporations: At each and every District level there
must be one Skill Development Corporation at least. If there can be more such
corporations in any single district to compete with each other even better. Let
these be established by the private sector, with a motivation for profit. Let them be supported actively by
the District Collectorate in the same way that State Industrial Development
Corporations have nurtured new industry in any state. The Skill Development
Corporations will study, evaluate, configure the suit of skills that are in the
shortest supply in any district and create Vocational Training Programmes.
Un-employed, under-employed individuals with no capital or land can come to
these VTPs run by the SDCs with total responsibility on themselves. Let the
individuals be financed by Micro-Finance Corporations to undertake these
courses. Actively in collaboration the MFC and the SDC should hand-hold the
trained individuals through the entire entrepreneurship life-cycle. Say for
example if an individual is trained in providing cellphone repair services then
right from selection of the location of his small “bhakhda” to branding it, to
promoting it, to creating customer delight, there be Continued Entrepreneurship
Education (the same way that a Chartered Accountant or an Investment
Professional has to undertake ongoing Professional Education).
5.
To expect that Government can and will do
everything is in any case wrong. It also becomes the origin of sloth,
corruption and negativity. The power of incentives will keep private
enterprises on their toes to compete amongst each other in investing very well
in the human skills of under-privileged India.
6.
As this gathers momentum and as a time comes
when on an average 50000 successful new entrepreneurs are created in each
district giving India a total of two and a half crore new entrepreneurs, we
would have built a formidable base. The multiplier effect of such income
generation, consumption and savings is baffling and can hardly be
over-emphasized. At such a stage the MFCs and the SDCs can join hands to foster
endless number of co-operatives based on what are the unique productivities of
each district. If one Amul could change so many lives and if one Lijjat Papad
could create livelihood and respect for so many, what can these privately
funded and publicly owned co-operatives with bare minimum gubernatorial
interference achieve is beyond anyone’s ability to imagine. At such a stage if
the brands and intangible assets created in such collectively owned
establishments can be structured into separate companies and those companies
are listed on the stock exchanges, then we would have reached a goal of
creating a country-wide institution of producing millionaires in every mohalla,
every bye-lane.
Many variations are feasible of this simple idea. The core
of such thinking is Land Reforms have been a much abused political slogan. Let
us go deep within the core of all wealth creation, i.e. raising the value and
stock of our human capital.
Jai Hind & Vande Mataram,
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