The Ironic Crores in India

All I could notice in today’s newspaper were the figures in crores. And it seemed very ironic. While there’s no money where the need is, money is distributed leniently among those who are just sitting idle. Picture this:

Rs 12 Crore – Spent annually on Ministers of State with no work.

Sometimes you don’t need to be born with a silver spoon, luck does the needful. 11 ministers with no work but excellent perks cost the state Rs 12 crore. This includes an annual phone allowance of Rs 1.8 lakhs! While most of the allowances don’t make sense to me, the phone one in particular is shocking. Corporates have excellent deals with telephone service providers (at my previous workplace, we had this Vodafone offer wherein all calls to Vodafone numbers are free, those to other service providers cost 30 paise per minute and 40 paise per minute for landlines. 1000 SMSes free every month). Why can’t the government crack a deal with a particular service provider and have all the ministers use the same service? Won’t this cost reduce drastically? Or if the government is already doing so, why such a huge telephone allowance that would feed many below-the-poverty-line families?

Rs 32 Crore – Donated by Asit Koticha to Mumbai University.
Rs 68 Crore – Still needed for the project.

Chairman and founder-promoter of ASK group and a Podar College graduate has been donating for noble causes time and again. When he learnt that Mumbai University is planning to set up a philosophy school, he decided to contribute Rs 2 crore. However, after meeting the vice chancellor and understanding the requirement to set up an international convention centre as well, he increased the amount 15 times! The mega project needs around Rs 100 crore and guess what - Koticha is even trying to convince his friends to contribute.

Rs 24.5 Crore – Carbon credits earned by BMC for reducing methane emission.

The BMC has impressively managed solid waste at Gorai dumping ground in Mumbai. It has been collecting the methane gas that is continuously released from the dump. The gas is burnt to prevent it from entering into the environment. In fact, the Solid Waste Management department is considering energy generation from the gas instead of burning it.

There needs to be a solid wealth management system to ensure that the hardworking taxpayers’ money is used for sensible projects instead of providing luxury to a lucky few non-working people. And we are talking crores here!
Stats referred from TOI 25th August 2010 edition.