This pandemic is the first real problem India will face as far its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is concerned, because it has the potential to not only dent the GDP but also make the recovery that much harder. That said we Indians are a resilient lot and even if there is some pain to endure in the short term, we will bounce back and make up for lost time in no time. But the pandemic is just a recent story; India’s GDP has been falling for a long time and although many might find it hard to believe, most of it has been government induced. Agreed the world is facing technological disruptions and old ways of doing business have taken a hit, but that has not deterred our citizens from hard work, as they seem to be as busy as they were when the economy was running at full speed; it seems all this hard work is really not adding up in the GDP numbers.
Have our citizens become less productive, lost their mojo, have an outdated skill-set or have become plain lazy. Or has our government kept them distracted and busy in unproductive work in the form of filling up compliance forms, issuing different type of identity cards which mostly has the same information, various ‘know your customer’ routines, complicated tax structures, and worse the recent phenomenon to make citizens form queues outside banks first to deposit their petty cash during demonetisation and recently to withdraw their hard earned savings. If most population is kept busy and on tenterhooks, to save their cash or identity or to decipher complicated tax structures, how do you expect them to perform freely and productively?
Coming back to productivity, let’s take Goa’s Public sector banks for example; most dedicated staff seated in dilapidated and badly designed branch offices, work tirelessly day in and day out to serve the customer despite the uncomfortable environment. The processes might be outdated and duplicated but they make sure most of their customers are served. At the end of the day the employees are satisfied that they have contributed their bit to the betterment of their bank, little knowing that the top gun at the bank has just given a loan knowing full well that it will result into an non performing asset. No wonder despite all the genuine effort most staff put at these banks, the bank always runs out of cash and has to be bailed out by the government from time to time. An example of ‘busy for nothing’ the employees of PSU banks are engaged with for no fault of theirs.
State Bank of India (SBI) might be a one off PSU case, which has a strong balance sheet and is able to shell out money to even buy a troubled private Yes Bank. The employees of SBI must be a satisfied lot as their efforts have resulted into a creation of a good and efficient bank. Along with State Bank of India are a handful of good PSU banks that are penalised for being good banks, because the government is always on the prowl to merge the good banks with the not so good. Merging is not necessarily a bad thing considering public money is at stake but imagine the highly efficient staff of the good bank having to work in the new setup with the inefficient ones from the bad bank.
Calculating and understanding complicated personal income tax or for that matter all types of tax is another tool which has not only occupied the citizens’ mind space, but has hindered their personal growth. Unfortunately the so called law makers have outsourced law making to bureaucrats who complicate even simple tax collection processes just to impress their political masters of their intellect. A complicated system is not necessarily the smartest system. If this government is serious that citizens start contributing to the growth of this country they should focus on eliminating all hurdles. Abolishing personal income or increase this slab to such high level, let’s say tax citizens whose income is one crore per year will do the country more good than harm by releasing most of the citizens from the rigmarole of paying income tax. The country might lose some income but it will make up with more productivity.
Government never understood the meaning of productivity, for them productivity means keeping their staff busy at all costs. To achieve this goal they will create some bogus assignment that will involve the citizens, little realising the amount of man hours they waste of the citizens and their staff alike. Of course it could be a ploy by the government to keep its population under it thumb, but mostly this is done by government officials who see their overpopulated employees idling or chatting in offices and so want to create some fake work, that usually is an effort of duplication.
Goa has been a pioneer in issuing cards to its citizens that an average Goan can even start a hobby of collecting government cards which have mostly become redundant or smack of duplication. Just calculate the lost productivity in making them.
The government must realise the implications of its decisions, which are mostly taken from the high chair and the impact it might have on its citizens and the economy. Add to that, the govt seems to be unenthusiastic to genuine criticism, which almost closes the door for genuine ideas, thereby depriving solutions that could have come up to genuine problems or even suggestions for course correction measures. All ideas need not come from the opposition parties whose job is to just oppose for the sake of opposition. Therefore the Govt should internally hire people whose role is to play the devil’s advocate so that every decision is first examined for its flipside thoroughly before making a decision.
This pandemic is one external shock we as a country will have to endure, this is the right time the govt should think of freeing its citizens from bureaucratic controls that not only cripples them from performing to the optimum, but wastes a lot of time on unproductive work, which in turn prevents them from making a significant contribution towards its GDP.
(Plastino D’Costa is a business consultant)
