Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Commonwealth Games: Perfect Blend of Extravagance, Poor Accountability, Lack of Vision and Mismanaged Resources


South Africa, with all its prior doubts and critics, has written history by hosting a successful world class game. Long period of one month has raised doubts in the minds of all the people whether an African country, into the clutches of Poverty, history of racial wars and AIDS, would be able to host a mammoth game like Football World Cup. But the way they prepared has a great lessons for India which is going to host another major sports event Common Wealth(CW) Games. They started preparing for the event in late 2006 and Stadiums were made ready by 2009. After that only regular daily care was left to done. Hosting such a grand sport event offered advantage in three ways. Firstly it showed the ability of South Africa to host a world class event that puts it at world stature. Secondly it has recognized its hidden potential in a global game like Football. High skilled shown by South Africa team and fantastic display of Ghana till the quarter final was exemplary. This will definitely change the way football was seen in Africa by a common man prior to the World Cup. Thirdly it has proved economically beneficial. Total expenditure in the preparation of the game was approx $ 4 bn ( 20,000 cr), while the revenue generated was approx $ 5 bn (25,000 cr). A clear cut profit of $ 1 bn which is nonetheless huge.

Sensation of successful hosting of World Cup by South Africa has churned Indians as well but in a different way. It has started flurry of questions, doubts and skepticism mixed with pessimism over our preparation of CW Game which is regarded as the 4th gigantic sports event. All these doubts are not mere allegations by the opposition but are concrete. Intelligentsia are seeing some serious flaws in the policies designed for the preparation of games. Initially the money proposed was Rs 1800 cr in 2004. But actually expenditure came out to be mindboggling 80,000 cr, means more than 45 times, by 2010. How could such a huge discrepancy in the approximation of expenditure be possible? It is beyond in the understanding of a common man. If a common man decides to make his own house and money estimation comes out to be 5 lakh, he knows the cost could well rise to around 8-10 lakh or at the most 15 lakh, but it could never be the case when it comes out to be 1 cr or more. How could you spend Rs 80,000 cr, when you are proposing a budget of mere 1800 cr! This shows some serious irregularities and utmost sense (rather non-sense) of non-accountability. Valuable money of the tax-payers is being wasted unabashedly. CW game is a bright opportunity to party for the most corrupt policy makers and the beaurocrats.

In the month of Jan'10, state government of Delhi openly accepted that it did not have 800 cr for the metro project and has asked help from DDA to bear out the expenditure. One of the allegation is that Rs 100 cr was spent in just planning of the expenditure sitting in the AC room which is ridiculous and preposterous. State government of Delhi did not have money to implement Right to Education in its schools also and asked help from the centre. Government did not have 6000 cr for the National I-card scheme, crucial for the security of the nation, and the budget proposed was reduced to 3000 cr. It again shows that the priority is not towards the people, their education, upliftment and security, but towards games. Delhi government claims to have fully prepared infrastructure till Aug'10 which should have been ready 1 year prior to the games. From the RTI it also came out that only Rs 700 cr has been spent directly for the players and their facilities, less than 1% of total budget. Government try to hide its face from the mask of success of Metro and fly overs. But Metro rail and fly overs have only little to do with the preparation of games. Our stadiums are not ready even now. What home-advantage they are going to offer to our own player when they cannot practice there? Metro Rail and most of the flyovers were under the proposed future development of the delhi as early as 1996. And it is mere a co-incidence that CWG came at the same time, giving the government a chance to justify its poor policies and extravagance and hide face.

Pride of hosting the grand event does not lie only in building the infrastructure, but also in the rank in the Medal Tally of the host country. China, which hosted one of the Best Olympics ever in 2008, was on the top of medal tally. Can our players be manage to do the same in CWG? If you are spending only 1% of the total budget on your players, what kind of priority you are showing in the preparation of the game, is it to appease the guests with facilities only or the medal tally you get? Had such a huge money was spent on the players only, or just one fourth of it, we could have come on the top of medal tally in Olympics as well. But Alas! this is not at all the case. Our players are preparing in the same conditions as ever. Even the most basic facilities of Play grounds, nutrition and Coaching is lacking in every town of India. Then where the calibre will be generated. Good players are not imported, rather they are generated with basic facilities, guidance and motivation. Focus has forcibly made shifted towards Metros, flyovers, footpaths, which has nothing to do with hosting a successful game.

So let us hope, mere hope, together of a successful world class games with India arises as a major sports destination with top rank tally. Let us keep our policy makers befool us and spend the precious sweat and blood money of the common man unabashedly. Let us allow to make this CWG a perfect blend of Extravagance, poor accountability,lack of vision and mismanaged resources. And let us show the world that we can neither host a game successfully nor do any good for our own players, forget the rest of the common men and his ever increasing problems.

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Myth of Economic Growth: Human Development Report 2009

Since economic reforms of 1991, India has been on the path of continuous economic growth, which many economists call as 'incredible'. And especially in the last decade from 2000-2010, we have made the possibility of double digit growth a possible dream. We have even withstood the global financial downturn with finesse. Even amidst the another European crises many economist have expected Indian economy to grow at 8+ %, which is truly remarkable. It shows India, in the coming decade, is going to acquire the great share of world GDP which will lift its status to a future economic power-house. As world equation has been changing, every single country wants to gain maximum profit out of it, so everyone is looking for the place which offer definite and tangible benefit. India is considered as one such place with biggest market and greatest hidden potential, so great future possibility. This fact is growing India's stature and making it one of the most attractive country.

But let us take a pause and take actual account of the impact of this much talked about Economic Growth on Human development. Here comes the mother of all human development reports, the UNDP's own Human Development Report (HDR) 2009. HDR is a precisely calculative data based on life expectancy, literacy, per capita income and overall health and well being of a certain population over a period of time. It is considered as the best measure of development globally. Latest report 2009 give India the rank of 134, with a score of 0.612, which in no way allow us to boast of our economic growth. Though our score has improved in last 10 years but rank has remained stick to the worst performing countries. Because of the precision and authenticity, HDR is actually a good way to make comparision with our own past years record and with other countries as well. Norway, Australia, Ireland, Iceland etc remained at the top positions with the score of more than 0.965 (near perfect 1). Even many African and less known countries are far better than us like Libiya-0.847, Mauritius- 0.804, Gabon- 0.755, Algeria- 0.754 etc.

Our competitive neighbour China has given spectacular show in the improvement. Here is the a data that shows China's remarkable stride towards human development.

Rank (2009) Score 2009 2000 1975

India 134 0.612 0.577 0.407

China 92 0.772 0.726 0.523

Even from 2008 to 2009 China has jumped 7 rank in the Index and came on 92, while we remained on abysmal 134.

World map indicating the Human Development Index (based on 2007 data, published on October 5, 2009)

0.950 and over 0.900–0.949 0.850–0.899 0.800–0.849 0.750–0.799

0.700–0.749 0.650–0.699 0.600–0.649 0.550–0.599 0.500–0.549

0.450–0.499 0.400–0.449 0.350–0.399 under 0.350 Data unavailable

This is a list of all countries by Human Development Index as included in a United Nations Development

Unfortunately this perfect indicator has been least bothered and least talked about in our country. No media coverage, neither print nor electronic, except 'The Hindu' has given this report its due place. While such an important marker was made elusive, some comparatively insignificant markers like increase in no. of rich people, share market boom etc kept on deceiving us. Infect HDR should have come up in a way that it would become an eye opener to the common man and the policy makers as well. So that must have removed the camouflage of booming India and have shown the naked reality. HDR could have become de riguer in the last election. People would have asked the politicians with greater vehemence to give the account of all the national policies designed to lift the people of India. People could have made the better use of RTI to check the pro-poor policies and the money spent with respect the actual change produced. Infect had this report earned its due respect, we would not have allowed our policy makers go reckless on every other policy next time, neither on implementation temrs nor on accountability.

Though economic reforms helped gaining plethora of foriegn investment which has opened the gates of opportunities for many young Indians. Still true meaning of inclusive growth has yet to be realized. While let not be reluctant towards its significance, yet let not get our politicians befool us and illusioned us with rhetoric talks of growth. We have to scrutinize closely all the pro-poor policies and their impact on HD and take the accountability of the government. 9% of annual growth rate should roughly raise our score by 0.020, which is hardly 4%, means less than half of the economic growth. In this way we can touch the score of 0.800 in the end of this decade which is descent if not laudatory.